deborah01
off to a rocking start
Member since September 2020
Posts: 1
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Post by deborah01 on Sept 9, 2020 23:44:24 GMT -5
Name is self explanatory . I am from Montreal area. Just beginning the tumble road and have a few....(lot) of questions. The most pressing is.... Apatite. I was given a larger Apatite rock to crack and tumble... Well it is not going to well. I have at least 1/4 of the weight in "chips" , a few ( 10) I inch and a couple 2 inches or so. They have been going for less than 6 hours and well....if I leave them go for the week as suggested by my tumblers info....I'm gonna have dust??? What am I doing wrong? Can you help?
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Post by pauls on Sept 10, 2020 2:16:58 GMT -5
Welcome Deborah from Australia. You aren't doing anything wrong at all. Well apart from choosing a really soft, difficult rock for your first tumble. I would say if you are keen on continuing with Apatite to pass them through all the stages very quickly, if you can get plastic beads you could try adding them to cushion things but I fear you aren't going to have a lot of luck. If you can get hold of some Agate and Petrified wood they would make a much better first tumble, they are hard and tough, so hard that the week in first stage your instructions suggest can easily blow out to months in first stage, but boy when you finally get them through and finished they will be superb.
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lordsorril
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since April 2020
Posts: 766
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Post by lordsorril on Sept 10, 2020 5:00:14 GMT -5
Welcome Deborah, I agree with PaulS. Apatite is not a good beginner material it requires a lot of cushioning in a rotary and is tough to get a polish. It can be discouraging to new hobbyists to wait weeks for a cracked dull-polished rock. Agate and *solid* petrified wood imo are the best to practice on. The first photo in my Snakes and Stones thread is using blue apatite: if you look closely you can see that there are lots of fracture lines in the final material (present from the start). Polish on these was done with a vibe tumbler since I would not trust a rotary to successfully polish mohs 5 hardness material...
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Post by jasoninsd on Sept 10, 2020 7:02:40 GMT -5
Welcome from South Dakota! As the others have stated, it's great to have an "appetite" for your first tumble...just not necessarily Apatite! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
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Post by rockjunquie on Sept 10, 2020 7:34:57 GMT -5
Welcome aboard from Virginia.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Sept 10, 2020 7:52:45 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona!
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Post by Pat on Sept 10, 2020 13:49:42 GMT -5
Welcome from California! Not a tumbler, but there are experts here.
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Post by opalpyrexia on Sept 10, 2020 14:26:10 GMT -5
Welcome from Washington.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,676
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Post by Fossilman on Sept 13, 2020 9:51:51 GMT -5
Howdy from Oregon...
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Post by TheRock on Sept 21, 2020 18:21:11 GMT -5
Welcome from sw/Michigan .
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