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Post by Peruano on Mar 11, 2022 16:33:00 GMT -5
Grossly overstated, and dripping with overly negative generalizations. If you don't want to buy HP machines, don't do so, but don't blame your choice on the entire Chinese populace, or on some hypothetical economic conspiracy made three decades ago. This thread has no real place on this forum.
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Post by Peruano on Mar 8, 2022 6:26:24 GMT -5
Borax kills . . . yard plants. Incurs wrath of spouse and involves digging new hole for replacements and disposal of tumbling waste in more distant "sterile" location.
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Post by Peruano on Mar 4, 2022 17:06:48 GMT -5
I've got bulbs peeking up but no flowers in Albuquerque. The mint in the garden patch is also showing its intentions. Last week in San Diego was full glory of cherry blossoms in Balboa Park and pear, crab apple, and such throughout the city.
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Post by Peruano on Mar 4, 2022 6:54:23 GMT -5
Ah! Spring! I can smell the damp earth in the sun from here and we definitely don't have damp earth in New Mexico.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 28, 2022 20:08:25 GMT -5
Boy, I'd say you are expecting a lot of a tumbler to get rid of those deep pits and imperfections. I'd say you would need better material or a lot of time in which these stones would be reduced greatly in size. Where are you and do you have self collected material? I'd be inclined to look for material that has less surface imperfections and then move to the rough stuff as you are inclined. You need to start on the top of the hill, not the bottom.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 27, 2022 21:11:04 GMT -5
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? Probably a lot younger.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 25, 2022 17:00:23 GMT -5
I'm no authority, but I suspect what you have is less metamorphosed than jet. Jet will definitely make the water run black when you grind on it. It will take a good polish as well. Why not put a piece to the wheel for our collective edification? Those are nice looking pieces --- from the beach??
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Post by Peruano on Feb 23, 2022 9:11:06 GMT -5
I've forgotten where you are located, but suspect its AZ. By definition rhyolites have lots of silica and in my simplistic view of geological processes, silicates in solution peculate through spaces and precipitate out as opals and chalcedony relatives. Probably enhances as solutions move through silica rich substrates like rhyolitic fields. Filling spaces creates wonderful shapes, twists, and layers. Have I offended anyone's technical knowledge?
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Post by Peruano on Feb 22, 2022 21:49:47 GMT -5
The photo you highlighted is a rhyolite. All of the chalcedony are white, beige, or light orangish. In many of the stones the rhyolite seems to have spaces, or be brecciated and subsequently invaded by the chalcedony. I wonder if this is a special situation in deep marine substrates. There is also a fuzzy, not quite ready to take a shine white inclusion on some of the chalcedony that reminds me of choco agate material. Perhaps someone with more geology background will id it for us.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 21, 2022 17:27:47 GMT -5
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Post by Peruano on Feb 21, 2022 8:36:52 GMT -5
A good home run only needs one swing of the bat. One of a kind slices off of the edge often work well with petrified woods. Yes the uneven back is a challenge for some uses, but life is like that. I've been doing rind cuts off of brazilian agates to produce miniature scenes as well.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 18, 2022 7:47:48 GMT -5
My best guess is that hitting them with a bit of zam (chrom oxide) on a buff wheel would make them rise to the shine sought. It can cut fast so you don't want to work it too hard if they don't respond with a bit of work.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 17, 2022 16:14:49 GMT -5
You've probably already considered this. Perhaps visually tying the 6 parallel diagonal lines together as 3 pairs/bands might serve to add some order that might make the cab look less busy. Damn, that is said so insightfully, confidently, and succinctly I'd guess that you are maybe a mathmatics scholar, art instructor, engineer, or just plain good with words. BTW that what I would attempt too.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 15, 2022 14:15:17 GMT -5
The variety of beautiful material that you pull out for our viewing is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 13, 2022 17:37:23 GMT -5
A couple of folks have asked to see what I'm finding on the beach and I've struggled with a non synched cell phone camera, and a wimpy point and shoot (hey leave the good stuff away from the sand and the salt), I've come up with a few examples some quite blurred.. My apologies. A m ushroom rhyolite. A large piece of rhyolite which could not decide on its preferred color. There are lots of small to medium chalcedony nodules, some very tumbled and some quite rough in texture. Of interest are some that border on carnelian orange. Some of the white and carmel rounded specimens are actually very heavy remnants of large conchs that after a few decades, centuries, or thousands of years turn into incipient cabs. Its all fun and today I found larger and more colorful chalcedony up on fossil beaches, not influenced by the tides and worth a trip back to the site.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 13, 2022 17:23:36 GMT -5
Actually mostly loggerheads (big head) with a few greens tossed in.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 13, 2022 7:05:13 GMT -5
I couldn't find the photo I wanted, but this one jumped out as a possible cousin of yours. I could not bring myself to reduce it to smaller pieces, but some of its rough mates that lacked the central attraction did succumb. My excuse for lack of access to my primary computer is that I'm on the beach in Mexico collecting rocks that no one here seems to want. In searching for the photos I found this one of me on a beach in Mexico 56 years ago, collecting sea turtle heads that no one seemed to want then (they were discards from the local marketplaces). They reside now in a Natural History museum and hopefully will forever -- just as we hope that some of the rocks we collect and appreciate will survive for decades in the hands of some appreciative caretaker. BTW I gave up smoking early and thats why I'm still walking beaches, riding bikes, and loving life.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 13, 2022 6:48:51 GMT -5
On some very large and striped Brazilians, I have cabbed corners. For some of these it would be two or three of the corners cut as the "bottom" of a cascade of bands (the resulting cabs looked like a frilly lace where a ladies necklace would be displayed (or a very non circular display) rather than the irregular circular pattern we see when we look at the entire circumference of the slab. I can't get to my photos right now but I'll try to find an example.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 12, 2022 16:25:35 GMT -5
Sounds like fun. Don't bid the kid's college fund, but your beginning bid should not hurt you too badly if any of it is what you suspect. Taking it all makes it easier for the seller.
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Post by Peruano on Feb 11, 2022 18:10:38 GMT -5
I know you said drip (gravity), but the cheapest fountain pump that Home Depot sells will do the deed, with no hole in the bucket and requiring only a plug in synched or not with your arbor motor. I hook my pump on a circuit with a light so I can always tell when its on. The pump really doesn't care whether you have any valves open or not; it just spins the water in the source bucket instead of along the water line. You can do what you want to do usually with threaded nuts backed by rubber washers (just like your toilet tank), but drip often does not produce enough water for good coverage on my wider wheels.
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