lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on May 16, 2022 20:13:49 GMT -5
My gf was commenting that I should do certain stone/color patterns or arrangements...so I said "Hey, how about I show you one of my snakes and then you make the stone arrangement-and I will photograph it?": she agreed. I gave her full choice to my collection of several hundred lbs. of polished stones that I have not shown yet. First she was looking at my black agate, then at the brazilian agates, and some of my amethyst (all very nice pieces). The black agate with the amethyst and yellow snake would have easily been a stunning combo, but, I kept my mouth shut. I walked away so I did not influence her selection and after a few hours she finally approached me and said she was done and her arrangement was complete (photographed below). Photo #239 After a few hours and a full selection of stones/colors I must say I was expecting something a bit more 'elaborate' from my biggest critic...Lol! |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on May 28, 2022 10:58:33 GMT -5
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Post by hummingbirdstones on May 28, 2022 22:28:20 GMT -5
Those are great pictures! Thanks for sharing.  |
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CLErocks
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2021
Posts: 342
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Post by CLErocks on May 29, 2022 8:31:01 GMT -5
 Stunning. |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jun 5, 2022 16:33:40 GMT -5
Those are great pictures! Thanks for sharing.  Thank you! Thank you! Been pretty busy lately with family stuff. A lot of faster to snap a photo with flowers than to arrange stones...so those will have to do for the moment.     That is of course not to say that I am not working on stones as well...just haven't combined the Snakes with the Stones recently. To sorta keep things on topic: Pictured below are a couple of neat Brazilian Agates I revealed after 1 week of #46 SiC.    |
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Post by redrocksobrightjoji on Jun 7, 2022 2:49:13 GMT -5
Hi All, I have been rock tumbling for almost 2 years now. I've had quite the learning curve for the first year before I found this forum:  I made this thread to show some of the tumbled rocks I produced. Since I find a lot of types of tumbled/polished rocks are kinda plain subjects by themselves: I will add one of my ball pythons as a subject for each photo.  Information regarding Ball-Pythons can be found at this address: Ball Python Wiki Info (Note: some of the care info is wrong on this website) I breed ball pythons for the pet trade, and I do not sell to the public. As life is short: Unless stated otherwise-each rock I tumbled and each snake pictured will only be shown once. I'm pretty casual with my hobbies as I spend most of my discretionary money fixing my giant haunted house that had been left abandoned for many years. Thankfully I'm not cursed with the desire for perfect stones. I do enjoy some character in the rocks I tumble, but, if I dislike the way a stone looks I will grind it into dust before I decide to polish it. I do produce flawless stones in every batch, but, meh... As for the material in the photos: I'm not a rock expert. I couldn't tell you what all the rocks are that I buy/collect/tumble. Some of them are obvious. I will just leave them unlisted and if you would like more info I will be happy to provide it.  I noticed in some of the photos I took there are a couple of non-matching rocks that managed sneak in--I'm too lazy to bother retaking the photos. I will try and add a photo every few days/week or so...I'm rather busy as I currently work in the medical field... Enjoy! Photo#1  |
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Post by redrocksobrightjoji on Jun 7, 2022 2:55:05 GMT -5
What kind of lighting did you use to take that photo? Interesting ... Dark room, flash photography, Vantablack cloth is in use. I’m still new here please excuse me if i don’t know how to comment, but I love the snakes and rocks !!!! Amazing idea thank you for posting!!! |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jun 7, 2022 19:23:23 GMT -5
Dark room, flash photography, Vantablack cloth is in use. I’m still new here please excuse me if i don’t know how to comment, but I love the snakes and rocks !!!! Amazing idea thank you for posting!!! Thanks! I'm glad you like them. |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jun 12, 2022 14:45:38 GMT -5
Photo #241 Yellow Calcite and few leftover pieces of Fluorite. I don't mind tumbling and polishing fluorite, but, calcite is a different story...I think I will steer clear of that stuff once I finish what I have.
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jun 26, 2022 12:56:24 GMT -5
Went to a reptile expo this morning, people were selling stones (both rough and tumbled) for terrariums.  Since my area doesn't have great stones, it easy to command these prices:   |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jul 11, 2022 7:18:04 GMT -5
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Jul 11, 2022 9:44:22 GMT -5
Some really cool and some really weird stuff there.  It's hard to tell how big those turquoise nuggets actually are, but for the price of turquoise nowadays (if it is real turquoise; even stablized) that's probably cheap instead of steep. I should note that depending on where the turquoise is from and the quality, color, etc., prices jump all over the place. |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jul 12, 2022 17:04:38 GMT -5
I noticed that the Brimfield Antique Show in Massachusetts starts today and I'm still on vacation-so I figured I would stop by (last time I was there was about 10 years ago...). My gf and I spent about 3 hours there and quickly scanned though maybe 2/3 of the vendors (700-800). There were a few people selling rocks/minerals. I took about 600 photos today, so I am only going to show a few. Groups of vendors lined both sides of Route 20 in Brimfield, MA for about a mile. Some of the property owners on the outskirts had the nerve to try and charge admission to visit vendors set up on their property (so my gf and I avoided those).  This vendor specialized in rocks/minerals/skulls/animal hides.  $10/piece, cha-ching!  Faced Brazilian Agate $20/piece  Fossilized whale ear bone...hmmm, learned something new.  Fossilized Vertebrae, pretty cool, don't remember ever seeing any for sale in my area...  I was surprised that there weren't higher quality amethyst specimens as the Brimstone Antique show is 'high end'.  I liked the design on this piece of selenite, but, not my style.  Some random selenite objects:  Lybian Desert Glass: $5/gram (ouch!)  A few people were selling these resin sculptures with scorpions/cicadas/crabs in them:  I do admit I think they are pretty cool.  One vendor appeared to be an Indonesian gentleman, he had an awesome selection of stones and carvings including bumblebee jasper.  He also had some stone slabs formed into 'animal shapes' which was kind of neat.  Even with 800 vendors I was coming up short on snake themed items. But, luckily the chinese zodiac animals made an appearance in onyx (so I wasn't completely let-down).  Agni Manitite, never heard of it...had to Google that one.  Someone had fun with a sphere machine.  Rocks aside there was some pretty cool stuff to see. My taste leans towards the dark and mysterious and there were a lot of things for me to photograph.    Where else can you find a cursed Kapala Monkey Skull?  I enjoyed looking around, lots of oddities, and everything for sale (at unreasonable prices).  You may wonder what I bought: Nothing for myself. My gf was interested in the Bumblebee Jasper (since she has not seen it before), and picked out a carved skull, and I suggested the heart. Aside from some of the worst lemonade I have ever had, those were the only two purchases we made. I wanted to call the photo below: 'Love, Death, and Snakes', but, only one snake would cooperate...so 'Love, Death, and Snake'  |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Jul 24, 2022 10:29:35 GMT -5
I was at the Hollis NH flea market this morning, it was a nice chill 84F in the shade at 8AM.  One vendor had a box of rough rocks containing a nice piece of tiger eye, a gnarly agate with pits, a large granite core sample, and some assorted rough from various parts of the world. The largest piece was a black and white stone which I thought was schorl (black tourmaline in quartz). It is a very heavy piece. The nice vendor thought it was petrified wood and sold it to me cheap (with another smaller piece of actual petrified wood). What do you think? I have used black tourmaline in quartz for my snake photos before (Photo #13). Pairs nicely with a Pastel VPI Axanthic ball python, this piece still needs to be cleaned up a little.  |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Aug 3, 2022 20:34:00 GMT -5
2022 Hatching Season Begins...  |
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 938
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Post by lordsorril on Aug 6, 2022 5:15:23 GMT -5
First snake photo of 2022! Photo #245 This hatchling still has its 'egg skin' on and will shed it aprox. 7 days after hatching. The stones are my first set of Stromatolite out of the Polish Stage. This material has taken me longer than Montana Agates to tumble/vibe/polish, it has a lot of....ummm 'character'...yeah...character.... I still have a lot of material in Stage 2-3 for weeks and much of it I have vibed for months before I 'green-light' it... I started working on this material in March 2022. Not that it took me THAT long, just that I'm backlogged a few hundred lbs of stones to get vibed... Here is what the rough stones looked like: |
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