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Post by Drummond Island Rocks on Feb 4, 2020 8:29:08 GMT -5
I absolutely agree with this point. ataraktos, IMHO, you should only be grinding rocks in your coarse stage. Get a good mix of sizes and tumble away. I don't want to waste grit on grinding ceramics, so just fill with various sized rough that you want to smooth out. And, as you noted, there is no sense in wasting away ceramics, especially in a stage where they're generally not needed. You mix of like hardness in coarse? I hadn't wanted to do that, yet ... So yes, with a single type of rough I often don't have much "size variety" without some media ... And then, what do you do as your rough losses volume - just add some new rough and sort out as they are ready to move on or not? I've had some minor chiping problems with fire quartz in coarse, with, well, a lot more filler than you would use! =) Like they were *almost* ready for the next stage and they started to peck at each other a little bit. They're currently in the "time out" bin. I was thinking I needed even more cushion to get at their last flaws without creating more ... But maybe "more cushion" is not the right approach? I run all varieties of rocks together for stage one. That includes items from obsidian to agates. I do run my barrels at about 80 percent fill which does lessen the chances of damage to the softer more fragile rocks. After stage one everything moves to the vibe tumbler. In the vibe pretty much everything runs together with obsidian and glass being the exception. Chuck
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ataraktos
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2020
Posts: 140
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Post by ataraktos on Feb 17, 2020 15:06:55 GMT -5
I run all varieties of rocks together for stage one. That includes items from obsidian to agates. I do run my barrels at about 80 percent fill which does lessen the chances of damage to the softer more fragile rocks. After stage one everything moves to the vibe tumbler. In the vibe pretty much everything runs together with obsidian and glass being the exception. Thanks for the info! (I rarely get a chance to sit down at a computer and BB Code is pretty unweildly on a phone (even for a software engineer)). I have been reluctant to run mixed batches, so far. When you say 80% full - for example, if you had a 10 pound capacity barrel, your rocks, water and grit would weigh roughly 8 pounds? i tend to run mine kind of full, too, by weight. I'm starting to try at least the first week or two of coarse without media. for the hard stuff. baby steps. =)
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ataraktos
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since January 2020
Posts: 140
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Post by ataraktos on Feb 17, 2020 15:15:47 GMT -5
You mix of like hardness in coarse? I hadn't wanted to do that, yet ... If you keep the hardness the same, yes, you can mix. Things like quartz, amethyst, carnelian, tigers eye, agates, etc can all be thrown placed in the same barrel. As the rough loses volume, either from grinding and/or removing stones for the next step, you can top the barrel up with more rough. I usually continue the coarse grinding stage until I've stockpiled enough to fill the barrel properly for stage 2. Granted that's more straightforward when staying in the limits of reasonable sized stones, and gets trickier with my large stone tumble projects. The trick here is to have way more material on standby, and that's where the addiction starts to uh... take over... the house... I go out and pick up quartz of all sizes to help fill the barrels out. I've tried being a little more picky with that so I'm not tumbling a bunch of filler material I don't care for. That could be specific to the material you're tumbling. Fractures, cleavage planes, etc can be a real pain. I'm not super familiar with this fire quartz, but I've had issues when tumbling more crystalline types of quartz (clear and smokey) where it can chip a lot. It really depends how "picky" you are. I'm fine with a natural, less tumbled look in things like petrified wood and material with druzy pockets. Other materials I strive to eliminate any and all imperfections as much as possible... which translates into spending most of my time in the coarse grinding stage. Yes, I think I may be "overly" picky. I don't want any crevices, divets, etc. either. (Except, yes, pet wood is different ... more than the rest, I hate grinding too much of that away!) But I don't think my knowledge and experience are up to my pickiness, yet! And yes, even using ceramics and tumbling a single type at a time, the rough addiction is taking over the house plenty well =/ I was just telling someone on instagram, I wish rocks had an expiration date and then there would be no hoarding problems! (Also, I highly recommend fire quartz, aka hematoid quartz. i think i'm only having problems because i'm such a noob - it's gorgeous stuff! =)
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