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Post by perkins17 on Feb 6, 2022 17:41:08 GMT -5
I am a fourth generation rockhound and have rockhounds on both sides of my family. I inherited a few rocks but no equipment. Unfortunately, it was all sold off before I was born. I was gifted a 1lb rock tumbler during the middle of COVID. I ran it for a year, got a 33b, went to a rock garage sale with a guy who told me about our rock club, which I joined, then went to the swap meet and got an MT-4, then I found an arbor that I got fixed up, won a tumble bee tb-4 from my local rock shop, was gifted an old pixie, bought a new trim saw body, and am still going on this hobby! I love rocks!
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quartzilla
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 1,222
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Post by quartzilla on Feb 7, 2022 9:04:52 GMT -5
My parents gave me a geode halve from Mexico when I was about 5. Around that time my grandma sent me some fossils and a couple arrowheads from Ohio. Soon after that a received The Golden Books Rocks And Minerals. This book had me hooked; the water color paintings of Brazilian agates and colored tourmalines and apatites fascinated me. Growing up in Anaheim about 2 miles from the Hobby City rock shop was also instrumental. Mom would have killed me to know I made the trip there on foot a couple of times before I was 12. Phase 2 began when we moved out to western Riverside County when I was in high school. There were prospect pits and mine dumps within walking distance of our home. When my mom brought me home a Gem Trails Of California and I realized Pala and the other San Diego county and Riverside County gemstone mines were all about an hour or so away that was the second major shift of my interests into rocks and minerals. I’ve always been a crystal/ mineral specimen collector but within the last 3 years or so have been leaning into lapidary type materials. Tumbling and now cutting and polishing which I’m in the process of learning. My first love is minerals and crystals but there is plenty of room left in my heart for these other rocks lol.
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Post by MsAli on Feb 7, 2022 16:17:33 GMT -5
Growing up in Minnesota my grandmother and mom always had lakers and taught me from a young age about them. Then I had an Aunt and uncle on my dad's side that had tables and lamps made with rocks they had collected on their travels. I was fascinated and have been hooked ever since.
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NDK
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 9,440
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Post by NDK on Feb 7, 2022 20:29:14 GMT -5
Mine isn't as eloquent ad many of the stories I've read here, but I'll share anyway. I was in the middle of a large landscape project back in 2008 and noticed my daughters enjoying picking through the landscape gravel. I thought hmmm my older brother had a tumbler when we were kids, I should get one and the girls could polish some of these rocks. I bought a harbor freight tumbler (mistake lol). The girls never really got into it but I had the fever. I eventually built a makeshift lap for in my drill press, then a reg. flat lap, then a slab saw & eventually a 6 wheel cab machine. Now the girls are grown up, I got divorced & met MsAli. Together we have our shop (still needs to be finished) with 2 6" trim saws, a 10" slab saw, a 16" slab saw, 3 flat laps (1 dedicated to polishing) the 6 wheel cabber I built, a 10" vibe lap, a sphere machine I need to get running & a smithing bench ❤️ Oh... And at least a ton (literally) of rock.
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RWA3006
Cave Dweller
Member since March 2009
Posts: 4,240
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Post by RWA3006 on Feb 9, 2022 11:51:59 GMT -5
My paternal grandfather was a rock hound but I never got a chance to go with him. As I became an adult my interest just seemed to spontaneously appear.
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Post by holajonathan on Feb 10, 2022 21:11:19 GMT -5
I've always loved rocks, even though there aren't any good ones in SE Michigan. As a child, I would spend hours looking for fossils in my limestone driveway. I've also collected lots of beach rocks from the great lakes (except Superior, unfortunately).
Covid hit and I was home a lot more than I had been in a long time. I bought a rock tumbler to try to polish some of the beach rocks I've been collecting over the past almost 40 years. One thing led to another... and things got carried away. Then my cat got into rocks! (see profile photo)
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Post by Son Of Beach on Feb 21, 2022 18:28:07 GMT -5
Maybe 5-6 years ago I went on a solo trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes in MI, long hot hike over the dunes. Finally hit the lake, went swimming but not much else to do when you are out there alone. So I started picking up neat stones, some were better than others. Ended up finding 10 that represented the Solar System including the moon, was kinda fun, lined 'em up and was ready to call it a day. Before I left s I saw piece of red and green rock just showing off in the water. Turns out it was just a big piece of red granite spider webbed with epidote...BUT...I had never seen epidote apparently. Ended up taking it home and that was that, the start rock journey that keeps building speed. Now I'm a unakite eagle in the water
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 22, 2022 17:05:14 GMT -5
Great stories all. The RR track story brought back great memories. Since we lived between 2 sets of RR tracks, that was one of my first solo collecting trips. Back then they did use some good rocks as bedding for the tracks and I remember how excited I was to find a nice specimen of garnet in green matrix. Man, what a rush! Never found another in multiple hunts, but that one sat om my dresser next to a mastodon tooth from a local quarry until my college days.
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Post by Rockindad on Feb 22, 2022 17:46:28 GMT -5
I've always loved rocks, even though there aren't any good ones in SE Michigan. As a child, I would spend hours looking for fossils in my limestone driveway. I've also collected lots of beach rocks from the great lakes (except Superior, unfortunately). Covid hit and I was home a lot more than I had been in a long time. I bought a rock tumbler to try to polish some of the beach rocks I've been collecting over the past almost 40 years. One thing led to another... and things got carried away. Then my cat got into rocks! (see profile photo) I wonder how many of us have said this to ourselves over the years
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brybry
Cave Dweller
Enter your message here...
Member since October 2021
Posts: 1,206
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Post by brybry on Feb 22, 2022 18:37:03 GMT -5
I've always loved rocks, even though there aren't any good ones in SE Michigan. As a child, I would spend hours looking for fossils in my limestone driveway. I've also collected lots of beach rocks from the great lakes (except Superior, unfortunately). Covid hit and I was home a lot more than I had been in a long time. I bought a rock tumbler to try to polish some of the beach rocks I've been collecting over the past almost 40 years. One thing led to another... and things got carried away. Then my cat got into rocks! (see profile photo) I wonder how many of us have said this to ourselves over the years That's how I ended up with a daughter,lol.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Feb 22, 2022 21:10:42 GMT -5
I wonder how many of us have said this to ourselves over the years That's how I ended up with a daughter,lol.
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Post by jasoninsd on Feb 22, 2022 21:14:30 GMT -5
I wonder how many of us have said this to ourselves over the years That's how I ended up with a daughter,lol.
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ndwaynep
starting to shine!
Member since March 2022
Posts: 28
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Post by ndwaynep on Mar 11, 2022 20:10:43 GMT -5
When I was a kid, my dad used creek gravel in our driveway. I spent a lot of time looking at it. Fossilized horn coral and things which looked like small clams. Many others too.
In a high-school freshman science class, I learned much more about different types of rocks and their origins. Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. Moh's scale of hardness and other things. There was a small piece of Uranium ore as well. We used an analog Geiger counter to watch the decay rate. Just a single tick about every 10 seconds, or so.
In 2010, I found a rock collection I had gathered in my high-school days at my dad's home. It was in a round Quaker Oats cardboard container. I had totally forgotten about it. Nearly 40 years had passed since. I still have it now. I open it and look at them on occasion.
What exactly got me into tumbling, I do not remember. I bought my tumbler in 2004 which was 18 years ago. Most of that time, it has spent in a plastic tote with the grits, pellets, and other items. I retired in 2017. Every time I would open my closet door, I would see the tote with the tumbler in it, but not think much about it. I think perhaps the reason I left it set so long was because of a major depressive episode I had in 2005 which lasted nearly a year. The tumbler sat on a kitchen counter. It seemed like it was always in the way, but I didn't have the energy to store it somewhere. I got it out briefly in 2018 then stored it again. So, I got it back out three weeks ago and have ran it since, a Lortone 45C. Despite living near a river, their are not many places to look for local rocks. Creek beds are nice, but the majority are on private property. My best local find was a large marble pebble about three inches in size. I ran it to a point where it started to shine a little. Then I noticed hundreds of little pits. It needs about 1.5 mm more taken off. It sits on my desk now as a paperweight.
Lately, I have been watching a series about mountain climbers on Mt. Everest. An area locals call the "Yellow Band" on the south face is sedimentary. It is around 25,000 feet up. Imagine all of that being on the bottom of some ancient ocean untold millions, or even billions, of years ago.
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lparsons
Cave Dweller
Member since April 2020
Posts: 276
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Post by lparsons on Apr 27, 2022 22:54:44 GMT -5
I’ve been reading all these great family/rock stories, and had to think, “how did I get into this?” I was going through river rock/landscaping gravel to find pretty rocks to go in my daughter’s aquarium…. then I got online, learned that people could actually make rocks pretty by tumbling and found rth. My life was forever changed!🤣🤣🤣
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Post by Mel on May 13, 2022 16:14:31 GMT -5
Got into tumbling originally because I could "set it and forget it" and also because I figured I couldn't screw it up; just toss the rocks back in and let them spin longer (or blame Mother Nature's quality control department).
Never did I think it would lead me down such a rabbit hole.
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