Welcome to the Rock Tumbling Hobby Forum where we share a love of rocks and a sense of community as enduring as the stones we polish.
The RTH Forum of www.RockTumbling.com is an Amazon Associate site and we earn money from
qualifying purchases you make after clicking on our links such as this
Rock Tumbling Supplies on Amazon
link for instance, or any of our various product ads and banners. By clicking our links every time you begin your Amazon shopping
experience, you are generating a bit of revenue for the forum which helps us cover our expenses. Thank you for your support!
If you cannot see Amazon ad banners directly below this text, please whitelist this site in your ad blocker(s). The ads below have been hand-selected for relevant content, and your patronage directly benefits this forum community, thanks!
I've got a batch of what is 99% aquarium gravel going in my Lot-o. I wanted to try that as my filler instead of ceramic after reading posts from a few people on this forum about it. I put the gravel in and started it on 120/220. I have some jaspers that I'm running through coarse right now and I have plenty of extra pieces, so I thought I'd throw 1 piece of each time in with the gravel just to see how it turns out. Ran in 120/220 SiC for 2 days. Then moved everything to 500 AO and ran for 2 days. So far everything was looking good. Moved everything to the polish stage almost 2 days ago. I was curious how the couple bigger rocks were looking, so I pulled one out when I got home from work and it's not shiny at all and has little pits all in it. After the 500 AO stage it was super smooth and had a little bit of a shine to it.
Here's some pictures
And I don't think the movement of the rocks is to blame. Everything was moving pretty good. Here's me dropping the rock back into the barrel.
Maybe I freaked out a little too fast... lol. Not sure what happened to that rock, but the other two I threw in look fine.
And now that I've rinsed out the entire barrel and getting everything dried off, the gravel turned out great as well.
I am still really curious what happened with that one rock though. It was looking really good after it came out of the 500 stage. Oh well, I'll just throw it into the coarse barrel.
So case closed. There is no problem. I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of using the Lot-o. I might be starting my first complete batch of rocks starting with medium grit this weekend. This was just sort of a trial run for practice.
The first two rocks look like quartzite (metamorphosed sandstone) and they should polish but sometines they have bigger gaps between the grains depending on how long they were squeezed. Even image #4 and #5 I would tumble in coarse longer but that may just be my preference for a more rounded stone.
One of the things I like about using aquarium gravel over ceramics is those shiny little pebbles you get at the end. My wife has claimed a lot of those pebbles for craft projects and the kids love them, too. My daughter likes to make little jars of them.
Glad to hear you are figuring out the Lot-O. One of the best things about it is the fact that you can make a few tweaks and figure out quickly whether it works or not. With the rotary, it takes much longer to dial in the process.
I agree with what was said above about the rock you were first questioning. That one looks like it would be a challenge to achieve a fine polish.
The first two rocks look like quartzite (metamorphosed sandstone) and they should polish but sometimes they have bigger gaps between the grains depending on how long they were squeezed. Even image #4 and #5 I would tumble in coarse longer but that may just be my preference for a more rounded stone.
Those haven't been through coarse at all. I've got quite a bit of it running through coarse now, but I added a couple of the rough just to see how it would go.
One of the things I like about using aquarium gravel over ceramics is those shiny little pebbles you get at the end. My wife has claimed a lot of those pebbles for craft projects and the kids love them, too.
I had them all spread out on a towel on the kitchen counter and my wife kept running her hands over them saying, "I want to swim in them." lol.
The first two rocks look like quartzite (metamorphosed sandstone) and they should polish but sometimes they have bigger gaps between the grains depending on how long they were squeezed. Even image #4 and #5 I would tumble in coarse longer but that may just be my preference for a more rounded stone.
Those haven't been through coarse at all. I've got quite a bit of it running through coarse now, but I added a couple of the rough just to see how it would go.
One of the things I like about using aquarium gravel over ceramics is those shiny little pebbles you get at the end. My wife has claimed a lot of those pebbles for craft projects and the kids love them, too.
I had them all spread out on a towel on the kitchen counter and my wife kept running her hands over them saying, "I want to swim in them." lol.
When we crush stone all the - <8 mesh goes into the yard as sand. But the 8mesh x 1/4" goes into a gravel shoulder in front of my house. It is interesting to see the rocks (8mesh x 1/4") disappear over time as people see the small colorful pieces and pick them up. We have had several customers ask to take them and a few kid and neighbors. I figure anything out there they can have.
Post by fivedirections on Mar 25, 2022 0:08:07 GMT -5
Did that rock ever turn out with further treatment? (#1)
I couldn't resist a few sacks from the Dollar store of river pebbles that I could see some lovely looking jellybeans under the dust.
Noticed the same pitting and hypothesized maybe I still had some rascals mixed in giving off a handful of sturdy debris like quartz sand punching the slightly softer jasper I was working on and the AO in the polish couldn't tackle fixing the holes.
I haven't had time to refine my media yet, that's why I ask. With time did your pool of media eliminate the problem?
This space is for temporary chat only and all posts drop off automatically and are not saved.
Members with real questions or comments that need an actual response, please post on the main forum - not here! Casual PG-13 posts only, no politics or religion please!
amygdule: I don't remember where I buried it
Sept 21, 2024 14:03:04 GMT -5
parfive: Last night of summer and you can’t fix that w/a Sharpie.
Sept 21, 2024 22:39:07 GMT -5
1dave: Be the person to make others believe in good people again!
Sept 28, 2024 14:40:36 GMT -5
rocknrob: We could use more people like that now for sure. Or if being a nice person is too hard, just leave some tumbled agates around places where kids play for them to find!
Sept 28, 2024 20:14:18 GMT -5
Warzy Raptor: Just try being nice to -everyone-, you’ll be surprised at the results! My nasty supervisor will change her tone within five minutes when I kill her with kindness. And the local homeless lady Michelle and I have hour-long knee-slapping convos!
Sept 29, 2024 11:14:22 GMT -5
*
Welcome to the Rock Tumbling Hobby Forum where we share a love of rocks and a sense of community as enduring as the stones we polish.
The RTH Forum of www.RockTumbling.com is an Amazon Associate site and we earn money from
qualifying purchases you make after clicking on our links such as this
Rock Tumbling Supplies on Amazon
link for instance, or any of our various product ads and banners. By clicking our links every time you begin your Amazon shopping
experience, you are generating a bit of revenue for the forum which helps us cover our expenses. Thank you for your support!