jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Aug 24, 2015 6:17:49 GMT -5
Never did a clean out on these after SiC 220 in the rotary. AO 500 AO 1000 and AO 14,000 added with no slurry changes, no virgin clay added. 3 weeks in each, heavy clay slurry slowed fine grit stages, but eliminated all frosting problems. Waiting waiting for polish cycle. After 10 days it started getting the shine going on. Needed 3 weeks in each stage. Hard rocks slow to achieve each finish, soft rocks slow to polish. A bit of water was added along the 9 week process if the slurry got too thick. Slurry intentionally thicker than what most would run. Hard PVC barrels seem bad about frosting, so the thick slurry. Shine shot: Best ones: Others: Strange rifts: This material from the famous Hogg Beryl mine. It is the matrix that giant aqua beryl crystals grew in. Beryl mined there during WW2 for beryllium metal used to line canons. Light rose colored quartz in boulder sized pieces. Some with 4-6 inch sections with no fractures. Breaks in cubes and rectangles. Roads paved with the stuff. Good stuff about picked over. The rose quartz has several exposures over a several mile area. Large pieces with the floating 'rifts' quite common. This load was lower grade leftovers. Interesting mine. Hogg Mine photos: www.hoggmine.com/photos.html
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garock
fully equipped rock polisher
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Post by garock on Sept 10, 2015 18:08:34 GMT -5
My first visit to the Hogg Mine was in 1960. Cost me a whole dollar. I was just ten years old. Sure wish I knew then what I learned later about the mine. I remember collecting moonstone, black tourmaline, the rose quartz, and book mica. Did not find beryl when I was young back then. My uncle found some of the beryl in the "glory hole". When I got a chance to go again in the late 90's or early 2000's, I looked for the glory hole. Did not find it. Things had changed quite a bit. The polish on the rose quartz is fantastic. Never seen any with such luster. I have only seen one cab that was cut that had the white star. It was done by an ole rock collector from Arizona that knew my uncle.
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unclesoska
freely admits to licking rocks
All those jade boulders tossed in search of gold!
Member since February 2011
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Post by unclesoska on Sept 10, 2015 18:22:28 GMT -5
Is it red Georgia clay you're using? Got my old motorhome stuck in it once. Had to hire a towtruck, who came darn close to gettin' stuck himself. Fun stuff!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2015 19:19:43 GMT -5
They don't look pink?
Sup wit dat?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 10, 2015 19:22:09 GMT -5
Is it red Georgia clay you're using? Got my old motorhome stuck in it once. Had to hire a towtruck, who came darn close to gettin' stuck himself. Fun stuff! Yep. Good ole famous GA red clay. Can get you stuck with a 1% grade LOL. Sorry for you. Best to use narrow mud tires like Buckshots with good knobs and a high revving engine to sling the mud out of the knobs in the tire.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Sept 10, 2015 19:29:18 GMT -5
They don't look pink? Sup wit dat? Very mild pink Scott. You are correct. However the standing clouds, milky waves and cumulus nimbuses in them are cool. Years ago garock may remember, there was a masonry out door pit barbecue constructed of low grade aqua beryl crystals 1-3 feet long. They used to pull 6-8 foot crystals out of there during war time efforts. Rose quartz in boulders. cool spot on earth
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,562
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Post by jamesp on Sept 10, 2015 19:35:11 GMT -5
My first visit to the Hogg Mine was in 1960. Cost me a whole dollar. I was just ten years old. Sure wish I knew then what I learned later about the mine. I remember collecting moonstone, black tourmaline, the rose quartz, and book mica. Did not find beryl when I was young back then. My uncle found some of the beryl in the "glory hole". When I got a chance to go again in the late 90's or early 2000's, I looked for the glory hole. Did not find it. Things had changed quite a bit. The polish on the rose quartz is fantastic. Never seen any with such luster. I have only seen one cab that was cut that had the white star. It was done by an ole rock collector from Arizona that knew my uncle. Let's see Mr. Frankie. It was 1985 when I first went there. it was easy to fill a dozen buckets of clear quartz. From the roads alone. Went back 25 years later and had a hard time finding an unfractured piece the size of a golf ball. Never knew about the moonstone. That mine is about in your hood.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2015 19:36:00 GMT -5
Ooooohhhhhh......... They are bitchin' Thought maybe the camera missed the color.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 10, 2015 21:01:23 GMT -5
Ooooohhhhhh......... They are bitchin' Thought maybe the camera missed the color. They have a random asterism. Light fires them up, best quality of that quartz.
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quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
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Post by quartz on Sept 10, 2015 23:25:04 GMT -5
You commented about "hard PVC" being bad about causing frosting. If you have mtl. and opportunity, make a 6" barrel up out of the gray PVC electrical conduit. It is softer than the white stuff; I, and others I have built barrels for, have had better finish result with the gray over the white plastic.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Sept 11, 2015 0:46:50 GMT -5
You commented about "hard PVC" being bad about causing frosting. If you have mtl. and opportunity, make a 6" barrel up out of the gray PVC electrical conduit. It is softer than the white stuff; I, and others I have built barrels for, have had better finish result with the gray over the white plastic. I have worked with grey. I remember it glues different. Electrical conduit...next time and thanks for that tip. You guys prepping for cooler weather ?
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Sept 11, 2015 9:16:16 GMT -5
Ooooohhhhhh......... They are bitchin' Thought maybe the camera missed the color. Back 30 years ago there were plenty of chunks w/out a single fracture that would allow 4 inch spheres. They would have the haze and clouds, but no cracks. At that thickness, very pink. Spheres do not reflect stars, but do well when transmitting light.
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riverrock
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since April 2010
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Post by riverrock on Sept 13, 2015 17:19:15 GMT -5
I was thinking you called them lazy boy because you found some new way to tumble in your chair.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 14, 2015 3:51:33 GMT -5
I was thinking you called them lazy boy because you found some new way to tumble in your chair. More time in chair and less time doing clean outs riverrock. Wish I had a Lazy Boy.
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Post by gingerkid on Sept 15, 2015 7:35:22 GMT -5
Those are sweet tumbles of Trapp County rose quartz, jamesp! When Rick worked in 'Bama, most of the guys called Troup county, "Trapp county." garock, sure wish it was a $1 entry fee to the mine today, ROFL. It's $35/person now. Looks like cloud inclusions in your 4th tumble, James. Found this article on striations and asterism found in Hogg Mine rose quartz: A MINERALOGICAL STUDY OF ROSE QUARTZ FROM HOGG MINE, LAGRANGE, GEORGIA WITH A FOCUS ON THE ORIGIN OF ASTERISM AND STRIATIONS WITHIN THE QUARTZgsa.confex.com/gsa/2012SE/finalprogram/abstract_202253.htm
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Roger
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Post by Roger on Sept 15, 2015 7:41:18 GMT -5
Nice tumble! I always had trouble with quartz and never could get a polish on it. I think it is probably because I am way too impatient to go weeks at each stage lol. Well done!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 15, 2015 7:58:13 GMT -5
Looks like a good bit of time has been spent analyzing the crazy Hogg Mine rose quartz gingerkid. End result looks like fractures and infill of fractures is the final cause of it's asterism and not foreign materials. I must say that is the biggest vein of rose quartz, and another exposure close to Smith's Crossroads. Would sure be nice to pit mine the whole area. Guessing it would be a mega beryl mine. One thing for sure, one shot of a sledge hammer on a 50 pound chunk breaks into perfect dice sized fracture free squares and rectangles perfect for the tumbler. The mining operations created tons of such rectangles and cubes that was used for paving the service roads. Used to fill 5 gallon buckets in 5 minutes with that stuff way back when. I left them in a large flower bed when I moved from East Point 30 years ago. "The Hogg Mine pegmatite contains rose quartz, smoky and white quartz, kaolinite, muscovite, tourmaline, and most notably beryl. The mine is located near LaGrange, Georgia. It was mined for quartz, kaolin, scrap mica, and beryl for beryllium from the 1940’s to 1960’s. The mine is currently open to the public for gem stone collection for a fee. Massive quartz specimens were collected from the Hogg Mine. The rose quartz specimen currently being studied is cross-cut by fractures and has numerous parallel linear striations. There are a few striations that diagonally cross-cut the parallel striations. Before it was cut, the hand sample was originally light pink in color, and was translucent in areas that are not heavily striated. It has since faded to white or colorless. This research is also being performed to determine the source of the pink color of the quartz. Rose quartz collected from Hogg Mine has been known to show the asterism effect in cut and polished cabochons. Previous research shows that the asterism effect is produced by fibrous inclusions of rutile in minerals such as sapphires and ruby’s, or by a fibrous aluminoborosilicate similar to dumortierite (Rossman, 2006). Another theory is that the striations themselves could be creating the asterism effect if these features are oriented with the same crystallographic structure as the quartz. The pink color may be caused by the same features creating asterism such as fibrous rutile inclusions (Guinel and Norton, 2006) or by an aluminoborosilicate mineral (Goreva et al., 2001). The specimen has been cut for thin-sections into three different sections, X, Y, and Z, to show different orientations of the striations. To determine the composition of the striations, an elemental traverse via scanning electron microscope (SEM) was performed. There was very minimal chemical variation between the rose quartz matrix and the striations. Based on the results it was decided that the striations are not the product of a mineral inclusion. The striations maybe either fractures that have been in-filled or they are growth lines of crystal faces. The microprobe was used to detect chemical variations within the thin-sections and to determine if the quartz contains fibrous inclusions such as those mentioned by Rossman and others, and to see if there are variations between the striations and the quartz."
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Post by gingerkid on Sept 15, 2015 8:03:26 GMT -5
This baffles me, jamesp: " Massive quartz specimens were collected from the Hogg Mine. The rose quartz specimen currently being studied is cross-cut by fractures and has numerous parallel linear striations. There are a few striations that diagonally cross-cut the parallel striations. Before it was cut, the hand sample was originally light pink in color, and was translucent in areas that are not heavily striated. It has since faded to white or colorless. This research is also being performed to determine the source of the pink color of the quartz." I thought that it would take much longer for massive rose quartz to fade. ?
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Sept 15, 2015 8:09:10 GMT -5
Nice tumble! I always had trouble with quartz and never could get a polish on it. I think it is probably because I am way too impatient to go weeks at each stage lol. Well done! Me too Roger. It was a long arduous tumble using overly thick clay based slurry that took a long time. Agate a better rock to tumble.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Sept 15, 2015 8:11:49 GMT -5
This baffles me, jamesp: " Massive quartz specimens were collected from the Hogg Mine. The rose quartz specimen currently being studied is cross-cut by fractures and has numerous parallel linear striations. There are a few striations that diagonally cross-cut the parallel striations. Before it was cut, the hand sample was originally light pink in color, and was translucent in areas that are not heavily striated. It has since faded to white or colorless. This research is also being performed to determine the source of the pink color of the quartz." I thought that it would take much longer for massive rose quartz to fade. ? Puzzled me too. I know the smaller the specimen the less pink. But the 'fade' point peculiar. I always felt that the old exposed road gravel was much clearer though. An observation made way back when.
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