braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 17, 2018 17:28:42 GMT -5
All local finds... nothing stellar and my shine skills have leveled out I think... the conglomerate stuff in the top left didn't shine up at all...was kinda expecting that but gave it a go anyways. The black ones shined up some...they are hard to not pick up as they are pretty much what you see in the photo in shape and finish and already have a nice luster to them on the ground. Some day I'm going to tumble a batch of black ones only and see how that works out. The upper middle light colored jaspers and darker lower ones shone up real nice as I'm coming to expect. Anyways just a couple more batches left similar to this then I'm going to focus more on tumbling same hardness stuff...thanks for looking...
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Post by TheRock on Dec 17, 2018 18:50:38 GMT -5
Looks like your on your way to me. What kind of steps and tumblers are you using? Cheers ~Duke
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 17, 2018 21:11:43 GMT -5
Looks like your on your way to me. What kind of steps and tumblers are you using? Cheers ~Duke All rotary...Thumler AR12 for rough tumbling and a Lortone 3A and Thumler AR2 for pre-polish and polish stages...I quit doing stage 2 about a year ago as I couldn't see that it was doing anything likely because I'm more fussy than most (I'm guessing) about when to move rocks from the rough stage. More and more I'm preforming rough with a tile saw which definitely speeds up the output. I do weekly clean outs and move rough on when they're smooth and shaped to my liking.... I grind out pits etc. in rough that need it during weekly clean outs as well. After that its 3 weeks in pre-polish and 3 weeks in polish. I use 50% aquarium pea gravel quartz as media in polish and pre-polish stages and recharge weekly with 1 tablespoon grit and 2 tablespoons borax....no doubt in my mind the pea gravel is the key to the rocks that do shine up good. Also I'm pretty vigilant about keeping things clean from one stage to the next trying to keep previous stage grits out ....
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Post by TheRock on Dec 18, 2018 10:48:45 GMT -5
braat have you ever thought a bought graduating to a Vibe? I would highly Recommend it and using Krystee's Obsidian Tutorial and following it to a TEE. Glen you will be glad you did.
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Dec 18, 2018 13:12:14 GMT -5
Not too bad for local finds. Are the black rocks on the right basalt? Comparing the shine level of local rocks and exotic Jaspers and agates would not be fair. If I were using rotary only I would be asking someone like aDave for advice. There are a few folks here that have it dialed in. Chuck
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 18, 2018 13:33:10 GMT -5
braat have you ever thought a bought graduating to a Vibe? I would highly Recommend it and using Krystee's Obsidian Tutorial and following it to a TEE. Glen you will be glad you did. I've considered a vibe many times and the only holdup is that I (still) don't know what to do with the growing shiny pile I got now. I've said the same before and got lots of interesting suggestions but nothing's grabbed me so far. I understand a vibe is much more efficient in grit use, time to results and electricity usage but for me none of that justifies the upfront expense and learning curve. So unless I'm missing something a vibe is on hold for now but thanks for the suggestion. Having said all that I'm open to getting one...just need a good reason my OCD brain can handle.... Maybe I'm overthinking it BTW the black rocks aren't obsidian (black jasper maybe?)if that's what you're thinking with the Obsidian Tutorial...
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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Dec 18, 2018 13:38:28 GMT -5
If you do not have a backlog of rocks sitting and waiting for stage 2 then adding a vibe tumbler may not be the right choice. If your rotary tumblers kept up with demand I would concentrate on dialing in the steps of rotary stage 2 through polish. On the other hand if you have $200 just sitting around the vibe tumbler is a great tool to have.
Chuck
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 18, 2018 14:00:05 GMT -5
Not too bad for local finds. Are the black rocks on the right basalt? Comparing the shine level of local rocks and exotic Jaspers and agates would not be fair. If I were using rotary only I would be asking someone like aDave for advice. There are a few folks here that have it dialed in. Chuck Not sure what they are really....for a while i thought hematite maybe but I've read hematite is liquid shine capable and magnetic but these guys ( and others I've done previous) don't shine up like some of the other jaspers around here plus they're not attracted to a magnet. I'm rethinking the black jasper I said in the previous post for the same shine reason so basalt sounds good till proven otherwise....I'll check it out and thanks for the idea! Whatever they are there's lots of them around here...
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 18, 2018 14:09:16 GMT -5
If you do not have a backlog of rocks sitting and waiting for stage 2 then adding a vibe tumbler may not be the right choice. If your rotary tumblers kept up with demand I would concentrate on dialing in the steps of rotary stage 2 through polish. On the other hand if you have $200 just sitting around the vibe tumbler is a great tool to have. Chuck That's pretty much where i'm at... I have a backlog but it's shrinking...
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mossyrockhound
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2011
Posts: 1,314
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Post by mossyrockhound on Dec 19, 2018 0:28:10 GMT -5
I think you did a grest job on these. Some rocks won't take a polish - vibe or not. After many years of using a rotary only I got a vibe - it's not magic, but definitely quicker than a rotary.
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