|
Post by hummingbirdstones on Dec 29, 2020 8:57:46 GMT -5
Thanks again everyone! I just love this place. Unfortunately, I have hurt my back and this has set me back some. I will be moving the tumbler off the ground after this lot finishes. I am still answering some of those questions myself, thank you all for the thought provoking comments. Hope your back feels better soon!
|
|
chandler
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since November 2020
Posts: 105
|
Post by chandler on Dec 29, 2020 16:01:02 GMT -5
Get well soon! I fell off a horse right after collecting my rocks, so I know what pain is. Yesterday, after 8 weeks, I finally had to do just a little more rockhounding.
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 14, 2021 15:18:41 GMT -5
4 batches of stage 1 completed so far. Think I'm finally ready for the next stages in the Lot-O. This lot are either ready for next stage, or I'm experimenting with how much surface will be removed before returning to 1st stage (if it doesn't work out). Those I just don't want to lose more volume unnecessarily. Next bunch are ready for pre-polish if not polish. A couple have issues I'm trying to fix conservatively before returning to previous stages. Some I dont believe will take a polish. Many should. A good sample of the majority of the rocks I have collected. But little to no agate- I've decided I do not want to tumble agate, at least for now. Probably the biggest lesson I've learned so far, that tumbling doesn't suit agates, at least for what I like about them, which is the very fine layers of patterns that make up the whole.
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 14, 2021 15:54:13 GMT -5
Not sure if this works but it explains perfectly my most common issue and one I'll be experimenting with next. Only using those I'm ok with losing, in a worst case scenario.
|
|
chandler
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since November 2020
Posts: 105
|
Post by chandler on Jan 15, 2021 18:16:25 GMT -5
I look forward to their replies because I have the same issues. Beautiful rocks!
|
|
lparsons
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 276
|
Post by lparsons on Jan 18, 2021 12:33:09 GMT -5
Hi, I enjoyed seeing your rocks! There are some very pretty ones in there. Do you have any idea what type of rock the 19th pic is? It’s very unusual.😊
|
|
|
Post by Bob on Jan 18, 2021 13:57:05 GMT -5
Did you find these rocks yourself somewhere? I'm amazed at the quality of this batch and the incredible variety. Your fav is gorgeous. But the rock in the 12th photo after it just blows my mind. Never have a seen a rock like that. Do you or anyone have any idea of what the heck it is?
What to go on just getting started with a bang!
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 19, 2021 10:11:54 GMT -5
Hi, I enjoyed seeing your rocks! There are some very pretty ones in there. Do you have any idea what type of rock the 19th pic is? It’s very unusual.😊 Thanks! Glad you enjoyed them I'm not 100% sure, but I think that one is Mary Ellen Jasper. Hopefully someone can confirm?
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 19, 2021 10:30:10 GMT -5
Did you find these rocks yourself somewhere? I'm amazed at the quality of this batch and the incredible variety. Your fav is gorgeous. But the rock in the 12th photo after it just blows my mind. Never have a seen a rock like that. Do you or anyone have any idea of what the heck it is? What to go on just getting started with a bang! Thanks Bob, glad you enjoyed the rocks. I find them in creeks, a construction site near my house (with gravel from a local gravel pit), along the banks of rivers and tributaries, on gravel roads - all within 10 miles of my house. I haven't even ventured out to the more popular spots yet. I once saw a reply to the question "where to find agates in Minnesota?" Which was: "anywhere there are rocks" as I have found it's pretty close to the truth. I know lots of people find them in landscape rock. The variety is what I find so appealing. What started out as a casual search for agates on a gravel road became a discovery of an endless variety of agate, jasper, petrified wood and others I can't identify (and quite a few fossils) but have grown to love just as much as agate. No idea what that rock is, but it reminds me of a van Gogh painting. It was one of those rocks that didn't seem especially great when I found it, but had "something" special about it.
|
|
|
Post by Bob on Jan 19, 2021 10:52:18 GMT -5
There is something very special about that rock I think. If you ever get a chance to photo it from several angles please post those pics here or in the adjacent rock photo forum. I'm even wondering if it is part of a petrified organism.
Many beginners post messages and rock pics here. But for a beginner, you are super skilled at what you are picking up in the field it appears. You must have a real knack for knowing what to pass on and what to grab. Surely you didn't figure that out in just a few months!?
|
|
Brian
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2020
Posts: 1,506
|
Post by Brian on Jan 19, 2021 20:48:40 GMT -5
Did you find these rocks yourself somewhere? I'm amazed at the quality of this batch and the incredible variety. Your fav is gorgeous. But the rock in the 12th photo after it just blows my mind. Never have a seen a rock like that. Do you or anyone have any idea of what the heck it is? What to go on just getting started with a bang! Thanks Bob, glad you enjoyed the rocks. I find them in creeks, a construction site near my house (with gravel from a local gravel pit), along the banks of rivers and tributaries, on gravel roads - all within 10 miles of my house. I haven't even ventured out to the more popular spots yet. I once saw a reply to the question "where to find agates in Minnesota?" Which was: "anywhere there are rocks" as I have found it's pretty close to the truth. I know lots of people find them in landscape rock. The variety is what I find so appealing. What started out as a casual search for agates on a gravel road became a discovery of an endless variety of agate, jasper, petrified wood and others I can't identify (and quite a few fossils) but have grown to love just as much as agate. No idea what that rock is, but it reminds me of a van Gogh painting. It was one of those rocks that didn't seem especially great when I found it, but had "something" special about it. The variety of rocks you are finding is amazing! I am looking forward to seeing all of your future pictures just to see what kinds of rocks you find!
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 19, 2021 22:55:09 GMT -5
There is something very special about that rock I think. If you ever get a chance to photo it from several angles please post those pics here or in the adjacent rock photo forum. I'm even wondering if it is part of a petrified organism. Many beginners post messages and rock pics here. But for a beginner, you are super skilled at what you are picking up in the field it appears. You must have a real knack for knowing what to pass on and what to grab. Surely you didn't figure that out in just a few months!? Sure thing, I can get a few different angles for you with a macro lens. Just to be clear, its the blue/gray/greenish one with yellow blotches, right under my fav? Not the orange agate under that? Thanks but rather than a true knack, I just have lots of time and opportunity. Just like photography, I figured out that if I take enough pics I'll eventually get a good shot. Although I will take a little credit and say I'm much more efficient now than when I started, at spotting keepers vs chuckers. And I do value quality over quantity so I've tried to apply the same drive for improvement with taking photos too. Have spent a few years photographing bugs so that's maybe helped with rock hunting too.
|
|
|
Post by Bob on Jan 20, 2021 12:53:13 GMT -5
No, I doublechecked and like I said it's the 12th one under/after, not the 1st.
|
|
|
Post by holajonathan on Jan 22, 2021 18:34:48 GMT -5
Not sure if this works but it explains perfectly my most common issue and one I'll be experimenting with next. Only using those I'm ok with losing, in a worst case scenario. You are right that there is a balance between how flawless you want your tumbled rocks to be, and how much good material you are willing to lose in the process. Whether you cut them, grind them, use a chisel, or just tumble them to death, removing flaws necessarily makes smaller rocks. Perhaps the best techniques, like sawing and grinding, allow you to remove flaws while maintaining much or most of the good rock. These techniques are also time consuming, however, and can be quite slow and unpleasant without expensive equipment. Here is something else to consider: with some exceptions, most rocks stay at least as interesting as they get smaller, and most get more interesting. This is especially true of locally collected rocks since the first 1/8" to 1/4" of exterior is often weathered / stained / fractured, etc, from freeze-thaw cycles, getting beat up by glaciers, by chemicals in the air and environment, etc. So often times the question is not so much whether removing flaws will eliminate the interesting parts of your rocks, but rather, whether you want smaller rocks with fewer flaws, or bigger rocks with more flaws. This is a personal choice. There are many members of this forum who are skilled at tumbling rocks but lack either the time, equipment, or perhaps most often, simply the desire to make the most flawless and shiny tumbled rocks possible. If you did nothing but run your local finds through a Lot-O tumbler for 7 days they would look 80-90% better than how you found them in nature. And many people would be quite pleased with the result. And the last 10% is what requires a lot of time and skill, and at least some money for materials and equipment. Here are examples of interesting, nicely tumbled rocks, with some flaws.His tumbling philosophy, in his own words: "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..." Others, want as many of their tumbled rocks to be as close to flawless as possible, even if this means smaller rocks and fewer of them. Three forum members whose rocks I find especially inspiring, and who fall into the flawless rock obsessive category, are Jugglerguy Drummond Island Rocks Garage Rocker To give you an idea, Rob ( Jugglerguy ) says these rocks lost at least half their weight during the tumble, but they sure are nice.And Chuck ( Drummond Island Rocks ) says that to get one pound of these flawless Montana agate tumbles, he goes through around 10 pounds of rough rocks. And if you want to see what some skilled cutting / grinding / tumbling can do to rocks that start of looking like big clumps of dirt, check out these beautiful Brazilian agates from Garage Rocker ( Garage Rocker ). I am in the flawless / obsessive category, but without the skills of these 3 guys. To me, when I look at rocks that I polished that have even minor cracks or holes, all I can focus on are the cracks or holes. It's like someone poking a dime size hole in a van Gogh but insisting that the painting demonstrates his masterful technique all the same. (Strangely, I enjoy other people's less than flawless tumbles better than my own). To summarize, making flawless rocks requires a lot of time, equipment, and effort, and you will necessarily end up with fewer polished rocks and smaller polished rocks. To me personally, I would rather have 5 beautiful, flawless, interesting rocks, than 5000 well polished, but flawed or otherwise less interesting rocks. The perfectionistic approach requires that you choose carefully which rocks are even worth tumbling, as there is nothing worse than spending a ton of time sawing, grinding, tumbling, grinding some more, and tumbling some more. Only to realize that the rock isn't all that interesting. So do you want to create tumbled rocks that look like they belong in an art museum? If so, study what the guys I mentioned above (and many others on this forum) are doing, and try to follow their techniques. Or do you want nicely polished but not flawless rocks that are a little bit larger, and a lot more of them? If so, just round them off and smooth them out for a few weeks in a rotary tumbler and run them through the Lot-O. A final caveat: many start this hobby thinking they are in the second group, but as they get better at making rocks very shiny.... and they discover higher quality rough material with intricate designs and amazing colors ... and, without intending to do so, end up with at least a few flawless rocks from every batch... and, without meaning to do so, end up with saws, grinders, tumblers, and who knows what else... they discover that all of the tumbled rocks that they love could fit in a small box, and the rest of them really aren't as great as they once believed. In other words, the better you get at tumbling rocks, I think there is a tendency to appreciate quality over quantity despite the tradeoffs. Time will tell which you prefer, and if you turn into the obsessive perfectionist type like myself, you can always go back and retumble your earlier batches.
|
|
gatorflash1
spending too much on rocks
Active in Delaware Mineralogical Society, Cabchon Grinding and Polishing, 2 Thumlers B's and a UV-18
Member since October 2018
Posts: 375
|
Post by gatorflash1 on Jan 22, 2021 20:45:10 GMT -5
I have some questions about your first batch.
How hard were the rocks you tumbled? What sizes and what medium did you use? Why did you pick these particular rocks to tumble?
How long did you tumble in each stage? Did you carefully check your rocks at the end of a stage to see if they were ready to move to the next stage?
How did you clean the rocks and tumbler between stages?
What kind and how much grit and polish did you use at each stage?
What was the most important thing you learned when tumbling this batch?
What do you think the reason was that caused some rocks to turn out smoothly rounded and shiny, and what caused the result for those that didn't pass your expectations?
|
|
Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,423
|
Post by Wooferhound on Jan 23, 2021 10:04:55 GMT -5
But the barrel didn't sound right and as I watched it, there was definitely some issue with the load distribution. So off it came and I opened her up to take a look. Well, in the time I'd done my little maintenance, a 1" pile of cement had formed in the bottom of the barrel and had glued a good portion of the rocks to it! Lucky I found it as I wasn't looking for it. So I sorted that out, put it all back together and left it running without a problem for a week. No problems, no shifting, same sound of tumbling rocks.
|
|
rockhoundmn
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since November 2020
Posts: 75
|
Post by rockhoundmn on Jan 26, 2021 18:05:00 GMT -5
holajonathan thank you for taking the time and making the effort for your excellent post. Very helpful!
|
|
|
Post by Starguy on Jan 26, 2021 18:48:22 GMT -5
Nice tumble. Glad to see someone learning the lapidary arts. It’s a lifelong endeavor. My only advice is “don’t tumble ugly rocks”. If you like it, it’s worth going on to the next stage. From what I’ve seen, you’re well on your way to having some beautiful stones. Thanks for posting your progress.
|
|
|
Post by holajonathan on Jan 27, 2021 0:43:33 GMT -5
holajonathan thank you for taking the time and making the effort for your excellent post. Very helpful! You're very welcome. A bit rambling, I know. But it takes a lot longer to be concise than to just spit it all out there.
|
|
|
Post by Bob on Jan 27, 2021 15:03:33 GMT -5
But the barrel didn't sound right and as I watched it, there was definitely some issue with the load distribution. So off it came and I opened her up to take a look. Well, in the time I'd done my little maintenance, a 1" pile of cement had formed in the bottom of the barrel and had glued a good portion of the rocks to it! Lucky I found it as I wasn't looking for it. So I sorted that out, put it all back together and left it running without a problem for a week. No problems, no shifting, same sound of tumbling rocks. Two things. First off, I and a few others were perhaps distracted by the gorgeous rocks in your photos and didn't maybe address your question. There seem to be to be very few agates in your photos for one thing. Mentioning that was triggered by now reading that you wrote "Probably the biggest lesson I've learned so far, that tumbling doesn't suit agates, at least for what I like about them, which is the very fine layers of patterns that make up the whole." Agates are one of the rock types that actually tumble the best because their fibrous micro/crypto crystalline structure is so tough. They are difficult to damage even with poor tumbling work. So you are probably worried about non-agates such as various jaspers, cherts, and misc. My message on this topic and your video, would be to relax, not over-analyze, and worry too much about losing mass on a rock you have fallen in love with. I say keep grinding that baby until it gets solid and worth keeping. This was hard for me at first, but now I am not bothered by it because if a rock never gets free of fractures, it gets discarded or cleaved, and once you have a lot in inventory waiting to be tumbled it just frees up barrel space for the next one. Second, as for your quote at the top of this message, perhaps you pulled it in from some other thread. This has happened to me maybe 10 times in 6 years and I'm trying hard to remember what caused it... It only happened in my 40lb barrel, and the sludgy layer at the bottom was not only rock dust and grit slurry, but also contained a lot of smalls--little rocks that had been added to the load about the size of a thumbnail. The first thing I tried was to substitute the rounded rocks being worked on with about half new sharp edged rough ones, thinking that would be the explanation. But it happened in the next load too. Then I started taking away the smalls and the problem went away. What I had been doing, is this. If the load was mostly pretty big rocks, and not very many medium size ones, I would put in a lot of smalls, thinking such was needed to protect the large rocks from hitting each other too hard. At such times I would use probably even up to 50% smalls. But the more smalls, the more that problem happened. So now, I seldom use more than maybe 1/6th or 1/5th or sometimes 1/4th smalls, and the problem has not reappeared. Whether this explanation could have anything to do with what happened to you or not I don't know, especially because this never happened in one of my small barrels. Also, I truly have no idea why my altering the amount of smalls affected this at all.
|
|