Post by bouldergal on Jan 18, 2008 9:49:24 GMT -5
First a little history. My children and I spent about a month last summer rambling from Vancouver B.C. south to the Petrified Forest NP in Northern California. My ex-husband joined us and tolerated many, many rock hounding trips including hours on the beaches. We had days of wind so strong it was like standing in a sand blaster and sun so hot we just about dried up at Richardson Ranch. I first joined RTH after the trip and posted pictures of our beach rock collection. We had collected rocks for years and I had purchased a used Thumler UltraVibe 18 on eBay after a lot of research but never used it (no grit, no confidence, no motivation).
That trip turned a passion into a frenzy!! I now have 5 different tumblers (used from ebay and even one from a garage sale) and an old HP combo unit that belongs to a neighbor. It doesn't have all the necessary parts to polish, though.
My daughter in sixth grade did her science fair project on rocks and how to determine which could be used in jewelry. She used Moh's Hardness Scale, cut small samples, tumbled those appropriate, and made one into a small pendant for her display. She's hooked, no doubt about it! We even planned on doing a rock exhibit for the school "Science Rocks" night at school but the teachers are on strike and doing nothing outside of exact classroom hours. Boooooooo.
About the only thing that drags my 14 year old son's nose away from video games is the offer: "Wanna go cut some rocks?" Yep. He's hooked, too!
So, to make a long story even longer I decided to reward the ex for his tolerance. Sometimes it's hard to come up with a gift for some people, especially in this economy! I had ordered some wrought iron table bases for mosaic work years ago and still had some taking up space in my garage. I decided to start slicing the beach rocks into tiny slabs, re-tumble them, and make him a small table. It took an incredible number of hours with my small trim saw and not having enough slabs to finish the project in the first tumble. Back to the saw, back to the tumbler. The table is painted with Rustoleum hammered dark bronze so I thought a dark grout would frame the rocks and be easier to keep clean.
Ta Da ........ THE FINISHED PROJECT!!!!!!
Full table before grouting-
Table top without grout-
Full table with charcoal color grout-
Finished table top-
As a refresher, these are my first photos posted and the rocks before cutting-
Sorry for the HUGE photos but thanks for looking,
Susan2
That trip turned a passion into a frenzy!! I now have 5 different tumblers (used from ebay and even one from a garage sale) and an old HP combo unit that belongs to a neighbor. It doesn't have all the necessary parts to polish, though.
My daughter in sixth grade did her science fair project on rocks and how to determine which could be used in jewelry. She used Moh's Hardness Scale, cut small samples, tumbled those appropriate, and made one into a small pendant for her display. She's hooked, no doubt about it! We even planned on doing a rock exhibit for the school "Science Rocks" night at school but the teachers are on strike and doing nothing outside of exact classroom hours. Boooooooo.
About the only thing that drags my 14 year old son's nose away from video games is the offer: "Wanna go cut some rocks?" Yep. He's hooked, too!
So, to make a long story even longer I decided to reward the ex for his tolerance. Sometimes it's hard to come up with a gift for some people, especially in this economy! I had ordered some wrought iron table bases for mosaic work years ago and still had some taking up space in my garage. I decided to start slicing the beach rocks into tiny slabs, re-tumble them, and make him a small table. It took an incredible number of hours with my small trim saw and not having enough slabs to finish the project in the first tumble. Back to the saw, back to the tumbler. The table is painted with Rustoleum hammered dark bronze so I thought a dark grout would frame the rocks and be easier to keep clean.
Ta Da ........ THE FINISHED PROJECT!!!!!!
Full table before grouting-
Table top without grout-
Full table with charcoal color grout-
Finished table top-
As a refresher, these are my first photos posted and the rocks before cutting-
Sorry for the HUGE photos but thanks for looking,
Susan2