New and getting foam. HELP?

navi,

I’m fairly new too but for the last year and a half I’ve been tumbling non stop.

When I started I read somewhere to add soap in with the rocks so I put in a pinch of laundry powder and built up enough foam and pressure to push the top part way off a Lortone QT-12 barrel. Made a big mess. I quit adding soap in with the rocks.

Some time after that I was putting soap in the water I used to rinse the rocks when I recharged the barrels with grit. That created big time foam too, so I stopped that also.

I know now I was using the wrong kind of soap but I get real good results with out any soap at all so I never tried it again.

I haven’t tumbled any fossils yet.

I have a question for you. Why would you open the barrel after only tumbling for two days? I see other folks do that too.

I charge my barrels and let them go for 7 to 10 days, foam or no foam, I almost always have god luck.

Garrett

its a new barrel, so that sounds like it. nothing has seen soap. i DO have a small (1"x1.5" or so) small slab with cronid fossils on it. its a black matrix rock, that when wet looks really good, henck my idea about seeing what happened with it.

as for the foam...should i remove it or leave it in?

garrett, the reason many open the tumblers after a few days, is to make sure nothing crazy is going in there. that's why i found the foam. one can find cracked or broken stones, or god knows what.

thanks. you don't think the foam will expand and blow the lid off? that's my real concern.

johnjsgems, thanks. the fossil is of chronoids, that are i'd wager, quartz type replacement, they actually seem to have a mother of pearl thing going on. matrix, being in missouri, has to be limestone, but....it doesn't really look like any i've seen in the state. the meremac river is only in the eastern region of missouri.

another reason i'm opening, is that i'm trying to get my oldest son, ben, age 5, into this as well. 'he' has 2 stones in there, and in an effort to spark his interest, i want him to see the work in progress.

I resemble that remark.

Mark

D.O.C. (Dissolved Organic Compounds) in and on the rocks cause surface tension and the tumbling/splashing creates bubbles (ie foam). There is also a minute release of gases which cause the bulging which can results in a more than minor catastrophe (think running while slinging slurry in a pretty circle from floor to ceiling, like the rings of Saturn if you will , then running dry for the rest of the week). Impatience can be a good thing. I have patience with small children, fish and plants...just not rocks .

If you have to loosen the lid to burp it you might as well check things out right ;D.

A little baking soda may clear it up if it continuously foams (limestone can be a problem).

Soap? Perhaps you read Borax? (Totally different head).

New barrel syndrome (hows that for a clinical diagnisis?). I think as the barrel ages and gets rougher inside, the surface is not as conducive to creating the bubbles and they either aren't made or they are popped (a little conjecture there, if you will).

Ok, enough of the nonsense, good luck with the tumble and keep us updated/posted, hope your kid enjoys it (there goes the college fund).

Dr Joe

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Wow. A fishy dude who actually knows what DOC is

I keep and breed rare rainbowfish, btw

Eileen