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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 1, 2020 18:41:59 GMT -5
It seems to me that the 46/70 will breakdown to a extremely fine grit, just not sure it will ever be a true polish as it is still has it's sharp edges. It might give you a close to great polish, but not quite the high polish. Only one way to find out. I would also think that you will be able to judge progress by the sound. I can usually tell if the run is getting too much slurry rock noise disappears, or getting a smooth finish which gives a different tone to the rock to rock hits or so it seems in my mind. Talk about patience!! as I quoted the other day, "Beware the fury of a Patient Man!!" Henry I have room for eight 3 lb. barrels in my tumbler, so I'll be able to just ignore it. I don't usually have all eight spaced filled.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 1, 2020 18:44:26 GMT -5
It would be an experiment. Depending upon the type of stone you use: Ideally you would open the barrel at 6 months and have nice polished rocks, but, if there is a chip in there that comes off a stone after the grit has worn down significantly-you could have a bunch of scratched rocks after all that time...of course certain types of stones this is highly unlikely to happen...and if you are just testing the possibility I'm sure you can pick some good candidates. If you do decide to proceed: Rather than using a volumetric measurement (tablespoons)--maybe use weight as a measurement? It would be interesting to record all the weights of the materials used and then identify the final weights post-tumble. Subtracting the mass lost on the rocks and then adding it to the weight of the grit used should provide the stone:grit ratio of your final slurry. That's a good idea. I think I will weigh everything. I just need to find a digital scale.
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Post by parfive on Dec 1, 2020 21:27:17 GMT -5
I agree with your initial post, Rob, where you “think there will be a week's worth of coarse grind and then the grit will continue to break down . . . “ but why waste the next fifty-one weeks on rocks that haven’t been shaped to anyone’s satisfaction?
Why not start the experiment with your LAST re-charge after the rocks have been suitably shaped enough to warrant a year’s investment?
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Post by Bob on Dec 2, 2020 12:01:26 GMT -5
Beware the Fury of the Patient Man...
Many years ago I was at a retired client's house, and knew that most of his yard was a huge stand of bamboo and indeed it was. Well, right in the middle of it was a beautiful pond about 20' in diameter, and plenty deep that I could not see the bottom. I asked him about this, because I could see no way it could have been constructed, given the bamboo stand around it with only a small trail leading through it. He said "I dug it." I asked how long it took. He said 20 years. My eyebrows shot up. He said after dinner each night, he would do it least one shovelful, or maybe a few. I had no words, just imagining the 1,000s of shovel loads, but I was also multiplying 20 years by how many days too. He said a patient man can accomplish a whole lot doing a little bit each day for many years. He no doubt would have made a good rotary tumbler guy.
He is dead now, and only after he died did I start wondering how in the heck did he manage to control the water when he kept digging. The pond was on a gentle slope. Maybe he had a drain of some sort to manage the rainwater which he removed 20 year later...
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Post by greig on Dec 2, 2020 12:28:49 GMT -5
Sounds like an interesting experiment and the resulting video should be awesome, win or fail. My only recommendation is to replace your lid gasket before tumbling. I would hate for you to invest a ton of time into a tumble, only to have it cut short for an $8 part. Use the hardest rocks you can acquire, so video title won't be "Man makes clay". I did a similar project a while back and if I recall correctly stopped it at about 4 months. A full year sounds cool. Good luck!
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 2, 2020 16:47:59 GMT -5
I agree with your initial post, Rob, where you “think there will be a week's worth of coarse grind and then the grit will continue to break down . . . “ but why waste the next fifty-one weeks on rocks that haven’t been shaped to anyone’s satisfaction? Why not start the experiment with your LAST re-charge after the rocks have been suitably shaped enough to warrant a year’s investment? Your comment had me thinking for awhile. I completely understand that the resulting rocks are not going to be a batch that I'm happy with. In that regard, I completely agree with you. I'm actually doing this as more of an experiment to show what doing only one stage and nothing else would result in. I chose to use something like Bahia agates that are already shaped somewhat so the results will be at least respectable. Broken rock would be very disappointing, I think. So I think for the sake of an interesting video I should just do one really long tumbling stage.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 2, 2020 16:49:27 GMT -5
Beware the Fury of the Patient Man... Many years ago I was at a retired client's house, and knew that most of his yard was a huge stand of bamboo and indeed it was. Well, right in the middle of it was a beautiful pond about 20' in diameter, and plenty deep that I could not see the bottom. I asked him about this, because I could see no way it could have been constructed, given the bamboo stand around it with only a small trail leading through it. He said "I dug it." I asked how long it took. He said 20 years. My eyebrows shot up. He said after dinner each night, he would do it least one shovelful, or maybe a few. I had no words, just imagining the 1,000s of shovel loads, but I was also multiplying 20 years by how many days too. He said a patient man can accomplish a whole lot doing a little bit each day for many years. He no doubt would have made a good rotary tumbler guy. He is dead now, and only after he died did I start wondering how in the heck did he manage to control the water when he kept digging. The pond was on a gentle slope. Maybe he had a drain of some sort to manage the rainwater which he removed 20 year later... That's amazing. Was the path too narrow for a wheelbarrow?
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 2, 2020 16:50:59 GMT -5
Sounds like an interesting experiment and the resulting video should be awesome, win or fail. My only recommendation is to replace your lid gasket before tumbling. I would hate for you to invest a ton of time into a tumble, only to have it cut short for an $8 part. Use the hardest rocks you can acquire, so video title won't be "Man makes clay". I did a similar project a while back and if I recall correctly stopped it at about 4 months. A full year sounds cool. Good luck! Please tell me more about the results after four months. You're the only one who has responded who did anything similar. The new lid gasket is a great idea. Thanks for that.
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Post by Bob on Dec 2, 2020 19:56:43 GMT -5
Rob, the path could have handled a normal wheelbarrow just fine. He said he used some of the dirt on the downslope and some went elsewhere.
I applied his philosophy once to create a 150' long drainage swale where I used to live. It was about 8' wide and 1' deep in middle and tapered out to nothing on each side. Took me about 3 years and I thought of his 20 year pond almost with each shovelful. I did a little bit on each Sunday afternoon.
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Post by parfive on Dec 3, 2020 1:55:41 GMT -5
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Post by fernwood on Dec 3, 2020 8:52:17 GMT -5
I have had Lavic running since May. The barrels, 2 3 lb. ones, have not been opened. Started with 4 TBS of 60/90 SIC from the Rockshed. Filled water to surface of rocks. The sound from the barrels has changed over time. They now sound the same as when polishing.
The rough rocks were very rough. Many sharp edges. Both barrels contained mostly Lavic. I threw in some driveway quartz and a few softer driveway rocks to bring the barrels to 3/4 full. Goal with the softer rocks was that they would break down and act as a medium grit of sorts.
I hope to open them soon. Just waiting for a new furnace to be installed. Currently have minimal heat to utility room. New furnace being installed Monday.
Will post results when I open the barrels.
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Post by Bob on Dec 3, 2020 12:37:43 GMT -5
Rob, maybe the load after a year will come out as aged Irish whiskey.
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Post by rockjunquie on Dec 3, 2020 12:42:02 GMT -5
Jugglerguy How will you keep up interest without opening it every few months to show the progress? Or, some other way. I'm just trying to figure how this will hold an audience.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 3, 2020 21:25:17 GMT -5
I have had Lavic running since May. The barrels, 2 3 lb. ones, have not been opened. Started with 4 TBS of 60/90 SIC from the Rockshed. Filled water to surface of rocks. The sound from the barrels has changed over time. They now sound the same as when polishing. The rough rocks were very rough. Many sharp edges. Both barrels contained mostly Lavic. I threw in some driveway quartz and a few softer driveway rocks to bring the barrels to 3/4 full. Goal with the softer rocks was that they would break down and act as a medium grit of sorts. I hope to open them soon. Just waiting for a new furnace to be installed. Currently have minimal heat to utility room. New furnace being installed Monday. Will post results when I open the barrels. I look forward to seeing your results. I'm planning to start on Jan 1.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 3, 2020 21:26:13 GMT -5
Jugglerguy How will you keep up interest without opening it every few months to show the progress? Or, some other way. I'm just trying to figure how this will hold an audience. I don't plan to hold an audience for a year. I plan to have one interesting video a year from when I start. This will be a very easy video to make. I made much more difficult videos last winter when I checked in on the rocks every week for months. For this one, I just have to film once when I put them in and once when I open the barrel.
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Post by rockjunquie on Dec 3, 2020 23:03:19 GMT -5
Jugglerguy How will you keep up interest without opening it every few months to show the progress? Or, some other way. I'm just trying to figure how this will hold an audience. I don't plan to hold an audience for a year. I plan to have one interesting video a year from when I start. This will be a very easy video to make. I made much more difficult videos last winter when I checked in on the rocks every week for months. For this one, I just have to film once when I put them in and once when I open the barrel. Ohhhhh.... I see. Sorry.
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Post by greig on Dec 4, 2020 8:48:26 GMT -5
Jugglerguy How will you keep up interest without opening it every few months to show the progress? Or, some other way. I'm just trying to figure how this will hold an audience. I don't plan to hold an audience for a year. I plan to have one interesting video a year from when I start. This will be a very easy video to make. I made much more difficult videos last winter when I checked in on the rocks every week for months. For this one, I just have to film once when I put them in and once when I open the barrel. So, I guess a live feed watching the tumbler roll is out of the question? Kinda like the cameras in an empty eagle's nest. ;-)
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Post by greig on Dec 4, 2020 8:53:35 GMT -5
Sounds like an interesting experiment and the resulting video should be awesome, win or fail. My only recommendation is to replace your lid gasket before tumbling. I would hate for you to invest a ton of time into a tumble, only to have it cut short for an $8 part. Use the hardest rocks you can acquire, so video title won't be "Man makes clay". I did a similar project a while back and if I recall correctly stopped it at about 4 months. A full year sounds cool. Good luck! Please tell me more about the results after four months. You're the only one who has responded who did anything similar. The new lid gasket is a great idea. Thanks for that. If I recall correctly, I started with 60/90 SC and just let it run. At the end, I polished with AO. It took longer to get the rocks to stage 3, than if I had changed grits. It is possible that if I left it tumbling for longer that the AO wouldn't have been necessary. I just lost patience.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 4, 2020 12:53:48 GMT -5
Please tell me more about the results after four months. You're the only one who has responded who did anything similar. The new lid gasket is a great idea. Thanks for that. If I recall correctly, I started with 60/90 SC and just let it run. At the end, I polished with AO. It took longer to get the rocks to stage 3, than if I had changed grits. It is possible that if I left it tumbling for longer that the AO wouldn't have been necessary. I just lost patience. I think I have more tumbling capacity than you do, so I won't be prevented from doing lots of other tumbling while I wait. I don't expect to have a problem with patience for that reason.
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Post by Bob on Dec 7, 2020 17:15:41 GMT -5
Rob, this thread has reminded me of something I thought about quite a bit in 2018. It looked to me like, more or less, tumblers hadn't changed much in 50 yrs, and I got to thinking about what could be done to improve things--to take a quantum leap as the saying goes. So I found myself thinking about the movement of rocks in 3 dimensions and ways to enhance that resultant grinding. I have come up with a new barrel design, but making a prototype to test is going to tax my abilities. I even thought of a camshaft under the entire tumbler base to "rock" the tumbler back and forth like a teeter-totter along the shaft axes. Another idea is that the shaft pair would be out-of-synch cammed cones instead of cylinders, but this would involve hard gearing the shafts to each other, and the shaft cover would be a real challenge to make.
I got to thinking how silicon is a substance that is in very common use today but may not have been 50 years ago and can it potentially play a part. Could a translucent window or strip along the barrel (like the view strip in an plastic car oil container) be doable? Could a "port" or other access point in the barrel be developed to add grit or add water? Could certain pockets or release mechanisms be inside the barrel to release the cup of grit each day over a week instead of all at once before we put the lid on? Could grit be electrically charged to enhance its adherence to the target material? Could a dummy rock be made to transmit certain data to a receiver that might be helpful (% water, conductivity, impact forces, or whatever)?
Your long term proposal here has certainly reminded me about the grit loading issue. If you were going to add 1 cup of coarse grit to a new 12lb load, do you have any inkling which of the following would do the most work?
A. Dump in a cup of grit on day 1 like we do now. B. Dump in 1/7th of that cup of grit in the morning for 7 days in a row. Granted this would be a whole lot of work and royal pain.
My own theory on the answer to that question is that it is probably B. But I've never tested it. My step-father (now deceased) designed the cargo bay doors on the space shuttle and some pretty fancy things for the military and was a rubber and silicon expert. I'll bet if he was alive he could tell me how to design a "grit addition port" to perhaps shove a stainless steel straw-like device into to add some fresh grit and that would not leak water and hold up to the rough beating it would take.
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