Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
|
Post by Benathema on Apr 6, 2020 12:40:32 GMT -5
Benathema motivated me to do some large rocks. This time I want to try stuff, take better trend numbers like Ben did. Ben tumbled that large white quartz. Never thought he could(sorry Ben) because it is fickle about bruising. Plus I collected bigguns with intent to tumble. Glad I could inspire someone! (turns out, a few folks, woot!) Funny thing, the big ones so far don't seem to care about bruising, they just barrel forward just fine. It's the material in between, from the smallest to largest smalls that is interesting. The smallest of the smalls didn't bruise, but as the size increased so did the bruising, yet somehow the biggest comes out unscathed? The big ones seem to play by their own rules, disregarding whatever physics the smalls are subjected to. Despite all the bruising on the smalls, and their rough texture, the big one takes a nice polish. It's like going bigger means more bruising until you cross over some threshold Still a head scratcher, for sure. There is no spoon.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 6, 2020 13:58:59 GMT -5
Quick note Benathema, going past 2 pounds caused issues with bruising using my equipment unless smaller smalls were used and no 1/8 to 1/4 pounders allowed. One member did a 4 pound agate using 3/16" almandine garnets. Henry did a 4 pound Rio cobble. If all small smalls are used the 5 to 10 pound big rocks should be doable. Something to look forward to. Can you help me with some weight loss comparisons ? Getting ready to take gram weight loss after 48 hours. Like 570 grams of Sic was reduced to 75 grams in that 48 hours, really crazy. I am wondering if UGLY simply crushed the crap out of it without efficient grinding...
|
|
Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
|
Post by Benathema on Apr 6, 2020 18:11:16 GMT -5
Well, not sure how much of a comparison I can help with other than to share what I know. There's been a mix of doing this with 60/90, 46/70, and 36 grit. This is mostly due to starting with having 60/90 on hand, and buying more aggressive grits as I ran low. The idea being to get more work (material removal) out of the coarser abrasives. So there's a mix, I changed multiple variables as a result. Additionally, when I felt spunky I did a recharge, so that may be more informative to you than anything. Otherwise these were set-and-forget for a week at a time. If grit got used up in 2-3 days, I wouldn't have known, and it kept going anyways... Just part of being in grad school means I have to compartmentalize how I spend my time (least that's my excuse, given I'm literally writing this post as a form of productively procrastinating writing a paper and proposal ). Anyways, here's some plots. The y-axis on these should represent a difference of 500g from minimum to maximum. That's my attempt to keep them on the same relative scale. Beyond that though, each has a different number of weeks, so the slope visually looks different. A: Quartz B: Tiger's-Eye C: Crazy Lace Agate D: Green Moss Agate During the coarse grinding stage for the quartz, the average mass loss per week was 43g +/- 7g, error taken as 1 standard deviation rounded to the nearest gram. The minimums and maximums in the coarse stage were 35g and 53g, respectively. The numbers for the tiger's eye were 51 +/- 13g, with min of 36g and max of 72g. WIP crazy lace: 40 +/- 8g, min 34g, max 56g. WIP green moss agate: 46 +/- 14g, min 35g, max 61g. Overwhelmingly it seems you should expect to be in the ballpark of ~40g/week... that used the recipe of 12 tbsp/12lb barrel. Again though, each one of these ultimately was treated differently, so I cant even tell you yet about one grit versus another for coarse grinding (only coarse versus finishing stages). The large quartz was 60/90 the whole coarse grind, so that's my best bet for making a future comparison. This GMA is so far only 36 grit and is similar in mass to the quartz, so that one may be the next best I can make a comparison to. The TE and CL are too variable in how they've been treated. Hopefully this is informative.
|
|
Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
|
Post by Benathema on Apr 6, 2020 18:26:19 GMT -5
It very well could be that it's crushing the abrasives and not efficiently removing material. In those weeks were I did the recharge, you see the slope does get steeper, but not that much steeper. In the tiger's eye there was 36g mass loss from week 3 to 4, then weeks 4 to 5 with the recharge lost 52g. That's not double, even though it got double the grit over that week. THEN AGAIN, that was a swap from 46/70 to 60/90 cause I ran out of 46/70... So maybe that could be part of it.
Maybe from here on out I'll care more about experimental setup rather than winging it lol.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 6, 2020 18:29:45 GMT -5
Can you help me calculate the percentage Benathema. Do you divide 'after loss' by 'before loss' and then subtract by 1 then X100 ? I get about 9% but UGLY doesn't look like a 9% loss. I'll do another clean out in 2 to 3 days to see if I weighed every thing correctly. Ugly before - after silicon carbide before - after Ugly weight loss...............................................................................................................Smalls weight loss Tiny white dings expected at 74 rpm with no pea gravel. Will change to slower 34 rpm. Curious to see how long 500 grams of SiC lasts at 34 rpm ! No half moons found. 3 of 10 thin test rocks cracked, no other broken rocks. No surprise considering 74 rpm. The gear. Changed to a slightly longer barrel. The clear tub was used to wash the grit down for careful separation capture.
|
|
|
Post by HankRocks on Apr 6, 2020 18:54:50 GMT -5
jamesp Wow!! That's just over 9% loss in 48 hours!! That's some serious grinding going on in that barrel!! ((start weight - end weight)/start weight)X100 = % Loss
|
|
Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
|
Post by Benathema on Apr 6, 2020 19:02:06 GMT -5
What Hank said. In mine, I've been keeping the start weight as the original week 0 mass. So everything is a tally with respect to the very beginning.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 6, 2020 21:21:28 GMT -5
What Hank said. In mine, I've been keeping the start weight as the original week 0 mass. So everything is a tally with respect to the very beginning. jamesp Wow!! That's just over 9% loss in 48 hours!! That's some serious grinding going on in that barrel!! ((start weight - end weight)/start weight)X100 = % Loss Noticed the way you used the start at beginning weight Ben. It made things clear. Thanks for the percent formula Henry. There will be plenty more clean outs to double check numbers. One thing certain is 564 - 78 = 486 grams of SiC was used up. A dollar's worth at 50# prices. Higher 60 to 80 rpm rotations do have a big impact on grind rate and abrasive consumption. SiC 30 and 46 always disappeared after 24 hours with average size 1 to 2 inch tumbles and 6 to 8 inch barrels when using instant slurry at 60 to 80 rpm. This run will be kept at 34 rpm. Anxious to see abrasive consumption and weight loss. I may run it longer if the abrasive is still plentiful. 74 awful fast for a larger rock.
|
|
|
Post by HankRocks on Apr 7, 2020 4:27:37 GMT -5
What Hank said. In mine, I've been keeping the start weight as the original week 0 mass. So everything is a tally with respect to the very beginning. jamesp Wow!! That's just over 9% loss in 48 hours!! That's some serious grinding going on in that barrel!! ((start weight - end weight)/start weight)X100 = % Loss Noticed the way you used the start at beginning weight Ben. It made things clear. Thanks for the percent formula Henry. There will be plenty more clean outs to double check numbers. One thing certain is 564 - 78 = 486 grams of SiC was used up. A dollar's worth at 50# prices. Higher 60 to 80 rpm rotations do have a big impact on grind rate and abrasive consumption. SiC 30 and 46 always disappeared after 24 hours with average size 1 to 2 inch tumbles and 6 to 8 inch barrels when using instant slurry at 60 to 80 rpm. This run will be kept at 34 rpm. Anxious to see abrasive consumption and weight loss. I may run it longer if the abrasive is still plentiful. 74 awful fast for a larger rock. 74 rpm just strikes me as too hard on everything. For that matter anything above 50 seems too fast, I know the grinding rate increases but so will the wear and tear on the equipment. Even though you do have a heavy duty setup, a sustained fast rate will drive something to failure sooner than it should. Fortunately your thick wall barrels should hold up. The other issue that does rear it's head with any large tumble are the zones of imperfection, softness or deep dimples, become more likely. Hard to find a large that makes the perfect tumble. Some of the large Brazilians I have cut would be one of the exceptions. Most other agates have those zones. Even Petrified Wood can have them. Dimples can be pre-ground or cut to eliminate, not so with area's of softness. I have lined up several large Rio's, 1 to 2 pounds that look to be perfect for tumbles with nice smooth, no dimples and no noticeable areas of softness. I suppose this is the same issue for Sphere makers, the larger the Sphere the more difficult it is to find the perfect material. As always, will follow with interest. That and be careful with all those scary exposed pulleys!!
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 7, 2020 6:32:53 GMT -5
If you stick with 1 inch or bigger shafts and quality grease fitting 1" pillar blocks the tumbler should handle the abuse without issue HankRocks. The abuse is manifested in the barrels. Especially the abrasive wear when running the giant bulk SiC. I do need safety guards to keep fingers out of nip points . The most aggressive tumbler appears to be the pulverized cobbles that landed in south Texas Henry. Tumbling the sun burnt Rio patina is one surface removal challenge. The bigger issue is removing the deeper high velocity half moon impact fractures that somehow attacked the surface of the Rio agates and woods. After watching a Mt St Helen's documentary I was motivated to tumble big rocks because they appeared to be the victims of extreme velocity and pressure. Because it became apparent the agate cobbles were likely pressure tumbled to shape in the seconds of a pyroclastic flow. Watching a documentary on Mt St Helen's...one of the canyons formed after the pyroclastic flow formed in a few hours with great violence. Old Volcanoes = new volcanoes = lava fields = agate amygdule's. So many pyroclastic flows are loaded with agate and pet wood. Said St Helen canyon is small at 1/40th the size of the Grand Canyon in terms of canyons formed in pyroclastic settlements. Basically the pyroclastic settlement forms a large dam holding back a giant reservoir of mud, logs, ice, snow, muck, silt, etc. When the dam breaks the reservoir out flow carves a canyon quickly. In the past decade geologists have changed their opinion that the Grand Canyon was slowly carved over millions of years. After studying Mt St Helens 3 hour canyon formation on satellite and ground camera imagery and comparing the after geology to the grand Canyon they are thinking the Grand Canyon formed in days or weeks in a horribly violent flood similar to St Helen's canyon. Along with most of the canyons out west. TOTALLY NEW GEOLOGY concepts thanks to St Helen's ! Well dang it, I could not figure out where all the half moon impacts were coming from on the Rio cobbles. Pyroclastic flows range in velocity from 60 mph to 430 mph guaranteed to create high speed/high pressure impacting and grinding. It is easy to tell after roaming for miles in well identified agate and pet wood cobble strata deposits in S Texas from Mexico, west Texas, New Mexico, S. Colorado a God awful massive event occurred there. The 200 to 380 foot hills looking down on the present Rio valley in S Texas are known to be formed by the turns in the massive flow of mud/logs/ice/silt/rocks etc. Funny there are no boulders where i collect at. Yes, 100-200-300-400 miles upstream from Zapata Texas the cobbles slowly increase in size from inches to feet across. I tried to find access to the Rio upstream but the drug trafficking issues are terrible up there and land owners are super paranoid. Guess what, the taller the S Texas hill the bigger the cobbles. Low hills at 200 feet generally have 2 to 3 inch cobbles, higher hills at 300 to 380 yield 4 to 6 inch cobbles. The higher hills are formed by the turns in the ancient debris flows leaving the larger cobbles at the inside turns of the flow as a river does. It just so happened that I had permission to hunt a ranch with two of the tallest hills around for miles and he had recently plowed them ! Big tumble candidates collected on high know at 360 to 380 altitude, Lake Falcon/Rio Grande: Section closer in and wet, yesterday. Wood/jasper/agate/fossil organics/chert/etc: 320 elevation high ridge loaded with wood too, typical high spot High graders easily spotted:
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 7, 2020 6:47:27 GMT -5
I forgot about the cause of these white nicks, been a while since tumbling rocks. They are due to left over large SiC particles that did not break down. They are also the marks of fast material removal when using 1/8"+ SiC. They are actually harmless because they are shallow and a run of SiC 60 removes them in a few days. Big grit = big removal = fast grind. I do coarse grind in 2 steps in most cases, SiC raw, then a final run of SiC 60 to clean up the pyroclastic damage(a joke). These left overs: Caused these shallow harmless white nicks:
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 7, 2020 7:12:32 GMT -5
It very well could be that it's crushing the abrasives and not efficiently removing material. In those weeks were I did the recharge, you see the slope does get steeper, but not that much steeper. In the tiger's eye there was 36g mass loss from week 3 to 4, then weeks 4 to 5 with the recharge lost 52g. That's not double, even though it got double the grit over that week. THEN AGAIN, that was a swap from 46/70 to 60/90 cause I ran out of 46/70... So maybe that could be part of it. Maybe from here on out I'll care more about experimental setup rather than winging it lol. Looks like I will go back to 74 rpm and a clean out with a weigh in every 2 or 3 days Ben.(1 day at 34 rpm to stabilize a safe thickish, sticky slurry for 1 to 2 days at 74 rpm to get the grind on). Once the amount of clay needed to establish a safe slurry is derived I will slam them directly into 74 rpm and skip the 1 day 34 rpm stabilization run. If I was running pea gravel the slurry viscosity would not have to be so critical. Will simply calculate the percent loss each 2 to 3 day clean out. And make record of starting mass. If the high speed and large grit and sticky slurry is going to remove 5% to 9% material in 2 to 3 days these should be short tumbles. This is my philosophy of coarse grind. When I did 400 to 900 gram tumbles in the past using the super grinder and tumbling with SiC 30 to remove the grinder's scratches the coarse run seemed to be short like 8 to 20 days. Then to vibe. My goal is not so much tumbling the big rock but to use the big rock to speed our coarse grinds and have exceptional high quality fast tumbles with a bonus big rock in the process. Without wasting valuable rotary tumbler space on ceramics and pea gravel.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 8, 2020 5:41:00 GMT -5
Going back to late 2016 and compiling 5 or more big rocks done in 5 seven pound barrels from Sept 12 to late October 2016. Sorting thru the photos and their time stamps. Trying to remember what was done. rockpickerforever gave me a fine 1 pound sawn chunk of crazy lace without a single defect. She started this big rock crap. I remember grinding/rounding the edges of the lace with a tuck wheel. I remember using the nasty coral smalls with no pea gravel for media in the below photo. I remember 60 rpm, SiC 30 to remove the tuck wheel scratches I remember polishing it in the vibe with pea gravel. I remember it took about 10 days start to polish. Looking at the photo time stamp in the attached link it started September 12,2016 and had a polish September 21, 2016. I remember prepping for a 2 month trip departing end of October. Link in compilation, still sorting photos. 1 crazy lace, 2 bloodstone, 3 black/white agate, 4 petrified wood so far all done less than 14 days: www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/29572948866/in/album-72157713801313716/Photo of crazy lace batch at start of run Sept. 12, end Sept. 21 2016 using really big coral chip smalls. The soft limestone rind on the coral chips makes a fine slurry overnight at 60 rpm.:
|
|
|
Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 8, 2020 6:11:21 GMT -5
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 8, 2020 9:29:54 GMT -5
Thanks for finding that link rockpickerforever. Damn my memory is pretty good. I had everything verbatim after 4 years except the barrel size and the speed being 55 instead of 60. Oh, and adding more big smalls to fill 15 pound barrel. Did I say thanks Jean ? I remember the surprising results of this experiment sending me out to build 5 smaller reinforced PVC 7 pound barrels and making a big rock Rio collecting trip. I sent that lace to you then, men forget stuff like that. Serves me well Sweetie, I have been looking all over the place for that rock. I guess we spread our genes like we spread our rocks ! Correlation ? Brainless males... Thanks for finding the thread and thanks for reminding me I sent that rock(and I do remember sending it. Of course you don't and shouldn't believe me because) Because men are born liars ha ha. Younger days motto, the more you lie the more you find romance - could it be ? Oops, may have a younger audience, better whisper. Thanks for everything Jean !! PS The lace was soft. It took about 2 to 3 days longer to remove the grinder scratches using SiC 30 on agates and woods harder than lace but they polished faster.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 8, 2020 9:44:23 GMT -5
Coral smalls after being run either 6 days with the lace or 12 days with lace and bloodstone(can't be sure)at 55 and 30 grit. Bad after photo. Without the big rocks, high speed, clay and 30 grit it took 4 to 6 weeks to get coral to shape that much. Still used just as much SiC either way.
|
|
|
Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 8, 2020 10:17:59 GMT -5
Thanks for finding that link rockpickerforever . Damn my memory is pretty good. I had everything verbatim after 4 years except the barrel size and the speed being 55 instead of 60. Oh, and adding more big smalls to fill 15 pound barrel. Did I say thanks Jean ? I remember the surprising results of this experiment sending me out to build 5 smaller reinforced PVC 7 pound barrels and making a big rock Rio collecting trip. I sent that lace to you then, men forget stuff like that. Serves me well Sweetie, I have been looking all over the place for that rock. I guess we spread our genes like we spread our rocks ! Correlation ? Brainless males... Thanks for finding the thread and thanks for reminding me I sent that rock(and I do remember sending it. Of course you don't and shouldn't believe me because) Because men are born liars ha ha. Younger days motto, the more you lie the more you find romance - could it be ? Oops, may have a younger audience, better whisper. Thanks for everything Jean !! PS The lace was soft. It took about 2 to 3 days longer to remove the grinder scratches using SiC 30 on agates and woods harder than lace but they polished faster. You're welcome, James. Yes, your memory, especially for numbers and such, is pretty good. But always nice to have the original documents to double check it against. Funny that you were chiding me about living in the past. Because I have been going through old informative posts, for nostalgia's sake, I knew exactly where to locate the post. Came in handy, in this case. I am glad (and I thank you!) for sending your first attempt at large boulder rolling back to me. I really wasn't expecting it to show up back here again (wasn't my intention when I sent it to you, for you to do all the work, lol), but was glad to be able to help out with your successful experiment. The chunk of palm also served you well. Now that you know what you did with it, you can stop searching for it. If you'd like, I can send it back for a visit! PS - Your secret is safe with me
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 8, 2020 12:33:25 GMT -5
The palm was magnificent. Super solid high quality silicification. I reduced it to small tumbles, it was freaky shaped as a big rock candidate. It was squirrely to break with the hammer meaning the small tumbles were not the best shape for making tumbles. So had waste, should have surgically cut it on the saw but it laughed at the saw, challenge to saw that one.
I still have a 2 pound chunk of that lace. Not quite as high grade. And some 1/4 pound tumbles from it that are remarkable.
Love rocks, especially lapidary grade fossils. Keep that lace, i got more. If you find any more of that palm I'll do it on splits and you can have a big palm tumble...
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 9, 2020 4:54:27 GMT -5
Embarrassing, my scale reads different depending on what surface it is sitting on. Cancel all weights... No way a batch can gain weight and highly unlikely 9% weight loss happened in 48 hours HankRocks Benathema. 74 rpm with the big rock did destroy 500 grams(50 cents worth at raw prices) of raw SiC down to 2-3 tablespoons again in 48 hours on the 2nd run. Next test is to see how long it will take for 500 grams of raw SiC to break down at a conservative 34 rpm. Theories from 2016. Must weigh to prove this but the large 1 to 2 inch smalls are getting spanked faster than any other coarse method ever used by a long shot. Using larger 1 to 2 inch hard agate smalls and avoiding quartz pea gravel sized smalls increases aggressive grind and eats away at the big rock much quicker and wastes no barrel space on pea gravel. Due to raw SiC causing (wanted) deeper surface pitting(faster material removal) running with larger smalls an SiC 60 run was done on the last coarse recharge to prep for SiC 500 in vibe.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
|
Post by jamesp on Apr 9, 2020 5:37:41 GMT -5
High speed impact damage manifests itself in 'half moon' fractures found on about every cobble on the Rio Grande. Most are 1/4" diameter so they typically run 1/8" deep. These fractures likely tell a story of a violent life style. Personally I would rather grind them off with the tuck wheel to enjoy the beauty of the unmolested guts of the stone. Another way to enjoy the stone and salvage a stone that has a nasty couple of adjacent faces is to simple saw the 2 nasty adjacent faces off at a 90 degree angle. This bypasses the grinding process, gives a view on the natural skin, and windows the deeper guts of the stone. Perhaps a 3rd face can be sawn to create a viewing pedestal. The other use of the 90 degree cut is to observe measurable wear by the radius created at the sawn edge as wear occurs(and observe any possible chipping in first roll. Classic half moons and 'theory' of cause. Ugly only had half moons on one half. It may have been locked into the limestone bedrock where many of these petrifications were found(formed). This happens with petrified(silicified) coral. Half the coral head is cemented into the matrix limestone/hard clay and the top half subjected to the harsh/violent environment. In the case of coral the exposed side may have fine color from metal salts or the cemented side may have the rich colors due to absorption from the metal/mineral rich cementing matrix. Or you get lucky and find a whole colony of coral heads cemented in and the top half all pseudomorph-ed and the cemented side solid. Half moons on bottom of UGLY: Sawn sharp 90 degree angle edge on UGLY showing 48 hours of coarse grinding radius: Top of coral pseudomorph, one of 4 dozen found cemented in a 4 foot cluster in super hard clay/. Mother Load ell ya ! Took 1 man and 1 lady 2 days to pry these out of the concretion. More solid base coral pseudomorphs from same cluster before sawing and pressure washing clay out of the 'geode' Brazil nut pod similar to some coral clusters
|
|