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Post by Peruano on May 13, 2021 16:33:02 GMT -5
There is a saying: There are two kinds of mountain climbers, those who never fall; and those who recover well. Being able to save a booboo sometimes takes more talent than being able to do one well the first time. More importantly the person who is able to see and acknowledge mistakes is the person you want to work and play with. Nice work.
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Post by Peruano on May 13, 2021 16:24:21 GMT -5
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Post by Peruano on May 11, 2021 15:19:05 GMT -5
Once again I am prowling the beaches near Guaymas in search of some of my favorite beach cobble including small pearlescent agates, mushroom rhyolites, and some miscellaneous yet to be indentified greens. Here is photo of the small agates that I collected today. I've sorted out the rhyolites, and other stones. These will be preformed a bit and tossed in the vibe when I return to the home base. Walking the beach is good exercise, and therapy, but having the mental stimulus of a frequent rock find is just about as good as it gets. My apologies for the group photo, bandwidth here is limited and precludes too many pictures.
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Post by Peruano on May 10, 2021 16:30:30 GMT -5
I've tried to call my specimens serpentine but not to my satisfaction. Yes they are hard. They just don't act like any of the serpentines I've handled from other sites.
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Post by Peruano on May 10, 2021 11:16:24 GMT -5
Black nursery tubs from landscaping projects are uv resistant; home depot buckets are not good for more than a year or two out of doors. I grabbed a few packages of thin copper tags meant for labeling landscape or garden plants. They don't rot like paper tags and are likely to stay in a tub of rocks once the locality or rock id is scratched in the soft tag surface. Otherwise my favorite rock storage furniture in the shop is a heavy metal file cabinet designed with the shallow double drawers for 3 x 5 library cards.
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Post by Peruano on May 8, 2021 12:50:48 GMT -5
Interesting if they turn out to be metabasalt because they sure look like rocks that I've collected on a favorite beach in Sonora, Mexico as beach cobble. I've tried to ID them but never to my satisfaction. I'm in Mexico now and will collect a few more than I would have to send your way for comparison. I may have a photos to share if I can come up with the password where the photos are stored. They are hard, I've had trouble polishing them but have not given up yet.
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Post by Peruano on May 6, 2021 11:41:57 GMT -5
Hard rocks can scratch softer ones. Scratched result in lack of shine.
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Post by Peruano on May 6, 2021 6:52:40 GMT -5
When you are using beach rocks, you can tell a lot by feeling the surface of the rock. Rocks that are fine grained or not grained at all will feel extremely smooth to the touch, whereas those with coarse granulations like sandstone or granite will feel rougher (all because the beach action has already polished them somewhat if they are the right configuration. If a rock has pits, cavities or holes it may be an indication that it has some minerals that are softer than other minerals in the same rock. That variation can frustrate the polishing process in a tumbler. I have a basic rock tumbling book that says to separate your rocks into hard, soft and throwaways. Run the hard rocks (those that file will not scratch) separate from the softer ones (those that can be scratched by a file or pocket knife). Try to separate the ones you have been working on; hard vs soft and work on the hard ones first. Good luck and stay the course; rewards are not immediate but well worth the effort.
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Post by Peruano on May 6, 2021 6:43:11 GMT -5
Welcome. You will bring us fresh perspectives on a range of topics.
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Post by Peruano on May 5, 2021 17:10:17 GMT -5
Mel I have the raytech uv 5 and have no problem with drying. Do you run soap in allstages? I'm assuming you are using the lid, although I don't sometimes when I'm establish ing the right water, grit, stone mix. I also have an older mini sonic. It is less finicky about how much constitutes a load. Thr gyroc b is grat because it will handle a small load . I suspect we all have our biases based on having familiarity and successes with our own machines.
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Post by Peruano on May 5, 2021 14:57:42 GMT -5
Photos are not definative, but looks like wood from this distance.
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Post by Peruano on May 4, 2021 12:32:45 GMT -5
I cut a variety of material , but most of it is hard. I've never dressed a blade, nor have I ever beat on it to restore the perimeter profile. I cut a lot of slabs, but mostly using a slab saw that feeds slower than you would normally using hand feed. I'm still using the same trim saw blade that came to me used with the saw several years ago, and the same 12" slab saw blade that I installed more than 5 years ago. I realize some folks believe in higher maintenance, but I don't understand it unless its original quality of blade, or operator variance. We all develop our own techniques and biases and until proven wrong cling to them like incumbent politicians.
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Post by Peruano on May 4, 2021 9:00:13 GMT -5
I don't think your blue stone came from the water tower. Sometimes you find stones that have been discarded by others and indeed often ones that some of us would consider keepers. Do the blue stones appear to have flat surfaces indicating they were cut on a saw? As an example of the above statement about discards, the New Mexico Tech Geology Museum in Socorro has an area outside the front door of the Museum (or at least did before the pandemic) where rocks that were brought in for id, or potential donations were discarded so that interested rock hounds could benefit from materials not desired by the museum. This might be a potential field trip someday (visit the museum, learn some identification clues, and score a keeper rock or six.
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Post by Peruano on May 3, 2021 20:21:28 GMT -5
Is it true that you are tumbling mostly beach stones? They are prerounded and less hard on your bowls and don't necessarily need to start with as coarse of a grit. If you have round stones, use them, if your media and smalls are staying on the bottom, you may have too much water. Wet the stones but pour out almost all of the water, Then squirt a good dollop of dawn liquid, run for a short few moments and then add your grit slowly. If you can see water, now, you probably have too much. If you don't have enough rocks (i.e. things seem to violent after 20 minutes or so, add more rocks (pea gravel, other smalls, etc>) just keep it reasonable. When you have the right balance of moisture, soap film to carry the grit up and around, and media to fill in the spaces. the action should be like a blender heavy with margaritas. If things get too dry, give it a spritz of water, but don't add enough that you can see it in the bottom of the bowl. The little gyroc vibe or the raytech 5 are better to start with because you are working with smaller loads, and its easier to adjust for the proper balance, but you can do it with what you have. Stay calm and go forth with vigor.
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Post by Peruano on May 3, 2021 13:10:23 GMT -5
It feels good to have a new tool (toy). Enjoy it and drive it safely.
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Post by Peruano on May 2, 2021 10:02:19 GMT -5
Don't discount your efforts. If you show up, you win. Clearly you have some quartz and some quartzites and other metamorphics. Some, not all, of these will polish spectacularly, and all will be improved, even in a vibratory tumbler because you are collecting river polished rocks, already rounded and somewhat smoothed. Follow the basic vibratory tumbler directions and you will be happy. Then you should talk to someone to direct you toward nearby localities for petrified wood and agates (west of Los Lunas is an obvious suggestion). Toward the Rio Puerco west of Albuquerque is a little more nebulous and complicated by Native American lands. You are in good rock collecting territory, but need a bit more confidence in what you are aspiring to do.
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Post by Peruano on May 2, 2021 7:30:57 GMT -5
Until someone here decides to write a lexicon of lapidary, I'd suggest that the info exists in many books. For example, Gem Cutting is Easy, by Martin Walter, Crown Publishers. 1972. Gem Cutting Shop Helps - The best selected from 17 years of the Lapidary Journal. Hugh Leiper Ed. Arts and Craft Press Sixth Printing 1969. Its obvious that the internet can't totally meet society's informational needs. Books are both valuable and essential. An additional reference with a good review of lapidary equipment and techniques is Gemcraft - How to cut and polish gemstones. 2nd Ed. Leland Quick and Hugh Leiper Chilton Book Co. 1977, Radnor, PA I recently discovered complete catalogues for Highland Park equipment (1969 and 1971) and Beacon Star (yr. ?) on the Tucson Lapidary site tucsonlapidary.com/1970-71-highland-park-lapidary-catalog/These documents are a treasure in providing the details and breadth of offerings by these two pivotal companies in the lapidary field. Also available is a slide show of other vintage advertisements. Other than having an excess of adverbs, the compilation is a great one. Enjoy.
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Post by Peruano on May 1, 2021 20:17:53 GMT -5
So how big are the rocks. What shapes did you select? Starting small is probably wise. Where in nm are you walking. If you select reasonably shaped and sized and textured rocks your success will be enhanced and accelerated. We have lots of good quartz, pet wood, jasper and misc. Don't work with misc. They are frustrating. Show is your stones when convenient .
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Post by Peruano on Apr 30, 2021 13:30:56 GMT -5
You probably had better luck with rocks than turkeys. They are not as wary or hard to bring home. My secretary in Louisiana used to say, the reason why God made crabs is that you always could bring home something when you went fishing. Go figure how that applies to rocks.
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Post by Peruano on Apr 30, 2021 13:27:48 GMT -5
You came to the right place. We offer opinions and ideas, and encouragement, and leads on where to find the info we don't have. I was once on a tourist trip in Galapagos with an eminent, but retired geologist and someone inquired as to whether he was happy to be in an archipelago with so many rocks. His response was like yours. Its all lava. Welcome. At least if you ask us to identify rocks you've collected locally, we are pretty safe on our answers. I just collected some nice specimens of pahoehoe from a relatively recent lava flow in New Mexico (3,000 years or so) and enjoy the stuff even though its not suitable for lapidary work. Its hanging on my front fence as to my affinity for lava.
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