Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 2, 2021 0:31:41 GMT -5
Okayyyy... after a bit of a big stone hiatus, time to get back on the horse. This is a pretty nice piece of red and brown jasper found here in southwest Washington. Initial pics here are a little questionable with lighting, so please excuse that and the scuff marks on the working surface. Week 0: 1811g (3.99lbs) going into 36 grit SiC in a 12lb barrel with filler made up of other jaspers, some agates, and a mix of various quartz/chalcedony to top it off. I'm not going for absolute perfection with this - I'm still not in a position to really preshape stones prior to tumbling (and I don't want to wait to do this rock). Obviously there's a couple pretty deep concave areas around it, but that's okay with me. I'd estimate maybe 8 or so weeks of coarse grinding before moving it forward, but that's subject to change of course. 5 pics here, first 4 are spinning it 90 degrees and snapping a pic from the top, then flipping it over to the bottom and snapping the 5th. Bah! I was sitting here thinking that something was missing that I usually do for the initial pics. I forgot the ruler! Coffee mug for scale. I got a funny feeling this could turn out spectacular.
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Post by stephan on Jan 2, 2021 0:42:26 GMT -5
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quartzilla
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 1,215
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Post by quartzilla on Jan 2, 2021 1:12:55 GMT -5
Yep! This reminds me of that old Mervyns commercial: “Waiting Waiting Waiting...”
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jan 2, 2021 2:21:35 GMT -5
Yep! This reminds me of that old Mervyns commercial: “Waiting Waiting Waiting...” No, actually, it's "Open Open Open!" Or, "Hurry up and wait."
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quartzilla
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 1,215
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Post by quartzilla on Jan 2, 2021 11:23:44 GMT -5
Lol I knew that. I don’t know how I came up with waiting. Sometimes I surprise myself!
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Post by greig on Jan 2, 2021 12:07:50 GMT -5
Sounds like a fun project. Good luck and I look forward to its progress
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,681
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Post by Fossilman on Jan 2, 2021 12:19:07 GMT -5
Going to be killer cool!
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HuntingHuron
starting to shine!
Member since October 2020
Posts: 39
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Post by HuntingHuron on Jan 2, 2021 12:53:00 GMT -5
Gonna be a beauty. Approximately how big would this 4-pounder be?
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 7, 2021 23:15:13 GMT -5
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
|
Post by Benathema on Jan 21, 2021 1:24:45 GMT -5
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Post by jasoninsd on Jan 21, 2021 10:02:55 GMT -5
Since you said you knew it wasn't going to be "perfect" before moving it along in stages, do you feel you're still accurate with your 8-week guesstimate for stage 1? Not poking fun or anything like that...I'm sincerely interested in your thoughts and opinion as to where you're at on it. I know I don't always wait to move forward with certain rocks, so I'm always interested to hear/read others thought process on "acceptable" imperfections.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 21, 2021 13:36:19 GMT -5
The first and second pics show a deep concave area which, through rotary grinding alone, would take a very long time to grind out. Something on the order of a year I'd reckon. So without advanced tooling that I don't have, I have to make a choice with acceptable imperfections and time frames. There are large surfaces with shallow nicks in them and I'd like to see those clear up for the most part. The 8 week estimate comes from doing other similarly sized and hardness stones where 8 weeks is just about a minimum for the coarse run.
Big stones, relative to the barrel they're in, take a long time to tumble no matter what. They don't move the same way as the smaller stones. A way to think about it is to consider for each revolution of the barrel, how many times does the rock rotate about its own axis? For these big ones they may be in the 1-2 times range. The smaller ones could be 5-12 say as they cascade down. Each impact/rub they make removes material. So in that context the big ones take longer since they don't move as much. They crash down on the smalls and get some grinding that way, and smalls falling on them take material off as well.
It is curious to see which rocks are ready to move to stage 2 each week. It seems the tumbler selects for certain sized material as the bulk of what I'm pulling out is in the 1 inch or less range.
Point being I tumble the big ones till I'm mostly satisfied or have come to terms with certain areas not smoothing out without many more months of tumbling. I'd like to keep the big stones as big stones. Then move on to the next big one in the queue.
The smaller ones I'll grind to oblivion if that's what it takes, unless I'm really in love with a particular piece. For the most part there I show no mercy. The big rocks really speed up the grinding on those, to the point where I'll probably never coarse grind without a big hammer rock in the barrel.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 25, 2021 0:02:08 GMT -5
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Post by HankRocks on Jan 30, 2021 6:25:05 GMT -5
Benathema I think you will probably struggle with more and more chipping, especially along the fracture lines, as you continue to tumble. You could load up on all smalls and extra slurry with the tradeoff being a much reduced grind rate. It's just the nature of some rock, in this case a Jasper, they are just not going to hold together well. I had a an attractive piece of Jasper about 2 pounds that I took two slabs from and they are brittle as heck, I could almost break them with my hand. It ended up in the erosion control bucket. I have way too many better rocks that will tumble well to spend time on ones that will not. I go with the Kenny Rogers song. It's not that I do not like challenges, I choose to avoid frustration when there are so many more rewarding opportunities. I save the challenges for the things in life that cannot be avoided and must be dealt with, that and keeping my fleet of old equipment running. Just fixed(hopefully) the 20inch Vib Lap that had decided it was a noise maker; loose motor mount and a worn counterweight. I do have a 4 pound piece of piece of Petrified wood that I have in the queue that appears to be nice and solid with no fractures or deep pits. Hopefully I can start it in a month or so. Good luck Henry
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Post by Bob on Feb 5, 2021 14:16:11 GMT -5
I just saw this thread, looked at the photos, skimmed the beginning text, but didn't read everything. Still I might have some comments that could help. I have been tumbling rocks like this and larger for several years. That rock isn't a good one in my opinion. It's highly fractured.
One of the skills that I'm so thankful to have developed, but it took years, is to more or less judge a rock that is fractured and how much and whether to throw it away. In the beginning I took rocks like this and would just keep grinding away for months. There was hope that the fractures didn't go in too far and I would eventually get to solid fracture free material. And, sometimes, it actually happened. But, when a rock looks like that one, I've learned it's a goner. When I see fractures with shattering patterns, and deep cracks too, and especially when I see fractures on all sides, it usually means the rock is fractured all the way through apparently via some crushing blow in the past. I give it a week, or 2, and sometimes 3, to be able to inspect it clearly when dry NOT when wet.
Often a rock like this, when given a blow with a 3lb sledge, will shatter into many pieces, some of which will be keepers if they are solid.
If my comments are of base because the thread isn't necessarily about the topic I just addressed, please ignore them and I apologize for blurting all that out.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 6, 2021 3:31:10 GMT -5
I just saw this thread, looked at the photos, skimmed the beginning text, but didn't read everything. Still I might have some comments that could help. I have been tumbling rocks like this and larger for several years. That rock isn't a good one in my opinion. It's highly fractured. One of the skills that I'm so thankful to have developed, but it took years, is to more or less judge a rock that is fractured and how much and whether to throw it away. In the beginning I took rocks like this and would just keep grinding away for months. There was hope that the fractures didn't go in too far and I would eventually get to solid fracture free material. And, sometimes, it actually happened. But, when a rock looks like that one, I've learned it's a goner. When I see fractures with shattering patterns, and deep cracks too, and especially when I see fractures on all sides, it usually means the rock is fractured all the way through apparently via some crushing blow in the past. I give it a week, or 2, and sometimes 3, to be able to inspect it clearly when dry NOT when wet. Often a rock like this, when given a blow with a 3lb sledge, will shatter into many pieces, some of which will be keepers if they are solid. If my comments are of base because the thread isn't necessarily about the topic I just addressed, please ignore them and I apologize for blurting all that out. Yea, I'm still in this learning curve, even though I have a handful of these under my belt. Some are solid, some seem solid at first but end up being super porous or fractured. It's frustrating sometimes because hopes are high initially, but if I cant rotary grind through a bad spot in a "reasonable" time, I end up truncating the coarse grind and sending it through to polish. One of the 12lb barrels is going to open back up next week, and I've been pondering what I want to put in it. Part of the idea is to, this time, actually pull out the angle grinder with the diamond wheel and go at it. Y'know, trying to put the best foot forward with a low-barrier-to-entry tool. The first big one, Giant Quartz Experiment, 1dave said, "I think it best to start with desired outcome" and that's been rattling around in my head every time I do one of these and didn't have a way to shape it prior to tumbling. The rivers are churning up material like crazy right now and I'm picking jaspers up left and right. Big-ish, small, with agate bands, red, yellow, brown... just tons of it. Really finding one that's super solid is even more rare, to heck if it's a decent size. So tumbling even that stuff now presents its own challenge. It's absolutely beautifully colored, but it is probably going to come out with chips. So, to that end with this stone, I will push it through the process, and whatever chips and gouges it has will come with it. It wont be perfect but it will still be pretty. I'll put it on my shelf as a testament to "lessons learned" so I remember where I've come from on this big rock tumbling journey. I just did cleanouts, so I'll follow this post with those updates, and it's in coarse for another week. I may swap out the material that's grinding with it for my well-rounded sacrificial quartz next week, and see if I can sort of gently smooth out what's rough and try to minimize chipping. I think I need to have a sit-down with my big rock rough and have a heart-to-heart, and just... get to know them a little better before I toss them in the barrel.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 6, 2021 3:39:42 GMT -5
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Post by 1dave on Feb 6, 2021 10:14:47 GMT -5
Lol I knew that. I don’t know how I came up with waiting. Sometimes I surprise myself! WHEN YOU'VE GOT IT, FLAUNT IT!
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Post by 1dave on Feb 6, 2021 10:20:04 GMT -5
Since you said you knew it wasn't going to be "perfect" before moving it along in stages, do you feel you're still accurate with your 8-week guesstimate for stage 1? Not poking fun or anything like that...I'm sincerely interested in your thoughts and opinion as to where you're at on it. I know I don't always wait to move forward with certain rocks, so I'm always interested to hear/read others thought process on "acceptable" imperfections. "acceptable" imperfections. - That describes ALL of us! - And what makes us AND THE ROCKS interesting and desirable!
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