naturemitch
off to a rocking start
Member since July 2018
Posts: 5
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Post by naturemitch on Jul 19, 2018 21:41:21 GMT -5
Hi everyone. This past winter I let my tumbler run for 3-4 months, without recharging or cleaning it out. Winters are rough here, and I thought what harm would it do, as long as I didn't just pull the plug and let the rocks and slurry just sit. So, I started things back up early this summer, ran a batch in 120/220, and had some surprises in store when I cleaned it out (I haven't REALLY looked at these rocks for say 7 months)! One of which was a gray Laker agate. Gray. Honestly gang, I really don't remember putting in a gray agate. One I personally collected from Lake Superior. Had another agate in there that still had the typical Laker colors, but could the slurry have stained the gray agate?? Oh, it would have been in coarse slurry for the winter months.
Thanks everyone!
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Post by deb193redux on Jul 19, 2018 23:30:20 GMT -5
not the grit. maybe dust from one of the other rocks. still the agate is fairly dense. I wonder if it was grey and had oxidized with whiteish patina that got ground off.
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agatemaggot
Cave Dweller
Member since August 2006
Posts: 2,195
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Post by agatemaggot on Jul 20, 2018 7:08:12 GMT -5
Dying a Laker on purpose is difficult (maybe impossible ?) to do, by accident, maybe not ! I'd go with patina loss if I had to bet.
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naturemitch
off to a rocking start
Member since July 2018
Posts: 5
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Post by naturemitch on Jul 20, 2018 11:27:15 GMT -5
Thanks! The patina thing makes sense. I don't really remember the agate having such impressive banding when I first put it in. I was just was unclear whether it was my memory or that 'something' happened during the tumble. I like the gray banding, I was just hoping I didn't screw something up and messed with it's natural color.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,709
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Post by Fossilman on Jul 21, 2018 9:47:11 GMT -5
When I have down time on tumblers, I just empty the rocks out and clean them up, put in a coffee can, mark it and wait for better days to tumble.. Than start over/no worries than...
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 21, 2018 14:36:47 GMT -5
I do something similar to fossilman. Even in the 'a few years of downtime', for the first 2-3 we kept the 'bucket of stuff in progress' capped and wet/etc. with its ceramics and such. The way we're doing stuff now -- I officially include my husband in this now since he's getting more interested as he watches me do this -- is a bit more incremental. Each run of stuff we're doing, everything gets sifted through, and the stuff that needs to go back one step, get rerun in the same step, or can move on to the next gets sorted out into some plastic shoeboxes with water in them. So things move back, repeat, or forward as needed, rather than one batch progressing forward all together. This takes an unholy forever since a lot of the stones are quite small, but it's been working fairly well thus far.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,561
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Post by jamesp on Jul 22, 2018 4:14:22 GMT -5
If Georgia red clay slurry won't stain rocks I doubt anything will. If it were possible the aluminum oxide finishing steps should shave off any possible stains. High quality agate like that should be difficult to stain. Like staining glass...not easy without using super acid or high heat. my 3
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