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Post by Bob on Dec 10, 2020 16:44:31 GMT -5
I've been toying around with the idea of doing the year with you, if I can stand the boredom of seeing that barrel unopened for that long. At least you can hide it in your cabinet. There would be two choices, to match you so we could see if the same thing happened, or to purposefully juxtapose for fun. The fun looks to me in the latter. A mind is a very dangerous thing, and mine has been working on ideas...
So far, the one that disgusts me so much that I find myself attracted to it a little bit is this. No grit. Just rocks. See what happens. And to maybe match your material. If you use for instance, rounded stones like from a beach, do that. Or if broken rough, do that.
So if interested, let me know the way you are heading on barrel size, and material.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 10, 2020 17:40:27 GMT -5
I'm definitely using three pound barrels. I'm tumbling Bahia agates from The Rock Shed and carnelians from here: roughstone.rocks/collections/rough-stone/products/copy-of-carnelian-nodules-from-morocco-1-poundI am currently leaning toward two barrels, one with aluminum oxide and the other with silicon carbide. I'll have to see what the rocks look like when they get here, but I'm probably going to use the smoothest Bahia agates and the smaller carnelians. If I do two barrels, I will try to separate the rocks into two very similar piles, with rocks of very similar sizes in each barrel and total weights as close as I can get them. I don't know what could possibly happen to rocks with no grit. If they were broken rocks, they might change a little, but if they were rounded rocks, like beach rocks, it seems like they would come out the same. Beach rocks would have already spent way more than a year being rolled around against each other.
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Post by Bob on Dec 11, 2020 12:08:06 GMT -5
OMG, Bahia and carnelian. I tumbled a lot of each in 2017 - 2019. These is some of the toughest stuff out there. I visited several times with Shawn about the large Bahia I got and how long they took, more than a year with some pieces. If you want to scare me away, nice job. <groan>
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 12, 2020 8:03:47 GMT -5
OMG, Bahia and carnelian. I tumbled a lot of each in 2017 - 2019. These is some of the toughest stuff out there. I visited several times with Shawn about the large Bahia I got and how long they took, more than a year with some pieces. If you want to scare me away, nice job. <groan> I have only tumbled Bahia once and it was a long time ago. I don’t remember them being difficult. I chose them because they’re already rounded. Do you have a better suggestion?
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Post by HankRocks on Dec 12, 2020 9:45:06 GMT -5
Jugglerguy It would be interesting to see what an extended run with just rock and water would do. Most of your SiC is going to be reduced to micro particles after 2 or 3 weeks, after that it's the slurry that's going to be doing the work. Nature works that way, of course the time frame is in thousands if not millions of years. On the other hand there is not continuous wear going on in a river, most rocks only move during heavy water flows, a good portion of that time they are buried and not moving. Seem to remember a show on Nova(?) where they took some sample rocks on the Colorado River and drilled and embedded sensors and established position of each. After a period of time with increased flow they back to see how far the rocks had moved. Geologist were astounded at some of the travel distances, even on some of the larger boulders. I don't think they thought about doing any mass change measurements.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Dec 12, 2020 15:23:34 GMT -5
Jugglerguy It would be interesting to see what an extended run with just rock and water would do. Most of your SiC is going to be reduced to micro particles after 2 or 3 weeks, after that it's the slurry that's going to be doing the work. Nature works that way, of course the time frame is in thousands if not millions of years. On the other hand there is not continuous wear going on in a river, most rocks only move during heavy water flows, a good portion of that time they are buried and not moving. Seem to remember a show on Nova(?) where they took some sample rocks on the Colorado River and drilled and embedded sensors and established position of each. After a period of time with increased flow they back to see how far the rocks had moved. Geologist were astounded at some of the travel distances, even on some of the larger boulders. I don't think they thought about doing any mass change measurements. It looks like Bob might do the experiment you suggested, just water and rocks, nothing else.
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Post by Bob on Dec 15, 2020 15:25:23 GMT -5
Jugglerguy It would be interesting to see what an extended run with just rock and water would do. Most of your SiC is going to be reduced to micro particles after 2 or 3 weeks, after that it's the slurry that's going to be doing the work. Nature works that way, of course the time frame is in thousands if not millions of years. On the other hand there is not continuous wear going on in a river, most rocks only move during heavy water flows, a good portion of that time they are buried and not moving. Seem to remember a show on Nova(?) where they took some sample rocks on the Colorado River and drilled and embedded sensors and established position of each. After a period of time with increased flow they back to see how far the rocks had moved. Geologist were astounded at some of the travel distances, even on some of the larger boulders. I don't think they thought about doing any mass change measurements. Rob, this is your thing--no way I would butt in and attempt to influence your choice of anything. HankRocks, you almost read my mind. 2, 3, ? weeks I too felt that that any grit would be essentially "gone". So I found myself wondering if Rob opened the barrel after 1 month, if the rocks would be in about the same shape as after 12 months. If he starts at pretty rounded beach rocks, then those first few weeks might make a lot of difference though even if not much happens after that. I want to share a strange thing that happens that may seem pretty counterintuitive and it puzzles me. In my 20lb and 40lb barrels, when doing rough grind, I let them run a week = 7 days. In hot weather, the 40lb may be 5-6 days because it goes faster and in very hot weather 4 days. Now, one might think that more days is better, or, that more can't do any harm. But, that's not been my experience. If I let it run too long, the slurry actually gets *thinner* and the rocks can be damaged! So, I am very careful on adhering to the dates and try not to do that. I've had several setbacks when I was too busy or too tired to go out to the garage, and let these barrels go 8, or 10 days, and only a few times more. The rocks can even be heard slamming into each other too hard. At times, it has taken almost a month to recover from the damage of a 20 or 40lb barrel going a few days too long. Why? I don't know. In the last couple of weeks, thinking about what Rob is going to do, I've been trying very hard to remember if this ever happens with my rubber 12lb or 6lb barrels. There is a chance it doesn't happen but I really can't remember. So maybe the risk of this happening is worse the larger the barrel. It's almost as if the slurry forms itself thick in the beginning, then after that large grit gets torn down the slurry at times can get thinner and thinner. How is this possible? I don't know. But because of this, I certainly would be afraid of doing 1) rough grind, AND 2) a large barrel in a test like Rob is doing. I've never tumbled a barrel smaller than 6lb so know nothing about small barrels like his 3lb. The last time I saw one was in a rock shop in Dallas and I laughed out loud when I held it in my hand it seemed so tiny. Rob and I apparently frequent some of the same beaches on Lake Superior and like me, he was probably found the results of storm surges pretty frightening. I've encountered cobbles of basalt and granite up to the size of basketballs thrown into piles over 100' back from the post storm beach. Once I slept in a tent in the 1980s during one of these storms along Twelve Mile Beach west of Grand Marias, MI. It was one of the most frightening nights in my camping life. The deafening roar of the rocks being thrown was so loud my ex-wife and I almost could not speak to each other in the tent. All I could think of what how deadly it would be to be anywhere near rocks on a beach like that in such a time. The next morning, we went out and could hardly recognize the beach we had hiked the day before to the Au Sable Lighthouse. I can't imagine how much grinding too place during that storm--but I'll bet a lot of new sand was created that night. Apparently the deafening roar was too much for the other campers--they had all cleared out during the night. It truly sounded like the rocks would be thrown into us even though are camp was at a safe distance. I certainly will admit the apparent futility of me closing the lid on a barrel in which I had put nothing in it but water and rough carnelian or Bahia agates. It's truly hard for me to imagine much at all happening in there, even after a year. Maybe it would take 1,000 years for things to even start. Not until he mentioned those materials did I doubt my sanity as much as I do now.
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Post by Bob on Dec 16, 2020 10:57:16 GMT -5
Thx Rob for mentioning Rough Stone LLC. I keep a list of rough sellers especially those that sell lemon size or larger, but had never heard of it. I just ordered some prehnite and tigers eye from them, asking for large chunky pieces, 10 lbs each. Shawn has fun with me when I do this sometimes. I might get one 10 lb rock!
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Post by Bob on Dec 29, 2020 15:00:49 GMT -5
Thx Rob for mentioning Rough Stone LLC. I keep a list of rough sellers especially those that sell lemon size or larger, but had never heard of it. I just ordered some prehnite and tigers eye from them, asking for large chunky pieces, 10 lbs each. Shawn has fun with me when I do this sometimes. I might get one 10 lb rock! Well, it came today and I must admit to laughing out loud when I opened the box. The tigers eye is one huge piece and 2 small pieces. The one is 3.25 x 4.5 x 6" and almost strained my hand lifting it out of the box. What a rock, but it's solid as can be. The prehnite is only 1 piece and much larger than that! I had written "okay to send large chunky pieces" and they definitely fulfilled. Each one will be a project of over 1 year probably.
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