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Post by tims on Jan 1, 2017 2:40:43 GMT -5
Oh nice, some really picturesque rocks. Love the blobs and waves in the jasper (?) in the first pic of locals. And the tan / gray / salmon pair in the next pic, and the mossy further down. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by tims on Jan 1, 2017 2:28:00 GMT -5
Was thinking the same thing about motor handling the extra weight / mass. Also if it does spin up i'd think it would create a geiser ... will the original splash guard work with it or you rigging up something custom? It should definitely be interesting. Best of luck and if it's really messy get video.
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Post by tims on Dec 31, 2016 14:47:45 GMT -5
Looks nice. Kind of primitive and elegant at the same time.
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Post by tims on Dec 31, 2016 14:44:38 GMT -5
No skunks? When I had cats I had to be careful on the front porch as it was common to have a skunk visiting for dinner out of their dish. The cats completely ignored the skunks and vice versa; they'd lay there 2 feet away from snacking skunk like it didn't exist.
I live on what was my grandparents' property. Dad told me a story of when he was a kid how grandma would put out scraps for the neighborhood strays and how there was always a friendly black cat hanging around. One night he was walking through the back yard and saw the black cat and scooped him up to give him a pet, then had to drop him soon after realizing he'd picked up a skunk. Then shared the family recipe for a de-skunking bath, lots of tomato sauce. If you're ever in my neighborhood give the black cats a wide berth.
Other than that lots of mule deer, a couple raccoon, cotton tails, mice, squirrel, chipmunks and bats.
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Post by tims on Dec 30, 2016 15:01:49 GMT -5
Those are beautiful. I'm at 500 AlO on my first batch (about 10 pounds) and i doubt i'll have anything finish with such a nice shine. My reload rocks are under a foot of snow so the whole batch is continuing stage to stage and the results are going to suffer for it. Looks like you're doing things the right way and getting a good finish for it, nicely done.
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Post by tims on Dec 24, 2016 15:23:13 GMT -5
Gorgeous material and they turned out great. I thought that first red one had a blue stripe til I saw the bic logo in the reflection
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Post by tims on Dec 20, 2016 18:12:34 GMT -5
We're pretty socked in with snow so it probably won't dry out enough to try any until spring, but yeah i'll give it a go. I'm using generic mexican kitty litter now which is pretty cheap, but free is even cheaper if it works.
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Post by tims on Dec 16, 2016 12:18:50 GMT -5
Thanks for a trip through the Louvre ... back to my paint-by-numbers.
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Post by tims on Dec 16, 2016 8:24:32 GMT -5
All this clay talk makes me wonder about local shale. There are massive shale beds around Osage, about 15 miles away. Bentonite plant near there. Slickest mud i've ever slopped through. UW did a clay analysis for the local oil barons if you like charts and core samples and more jargon than you can shake a muddy stick at: Core evaluation and clay analysis of the Newcastle SandstoneI assume the low permeability clay rich sands would be best for making tumbling mud? Would certainly send jamesp or any other mad scientist a sample to play with when it thaws out a bit.
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Post by tims on Dec 15, 2016 3:48:55 GMT -5
The feathered dinosaur theory has been kicking around for awhile, and it's cool that they've recovered a specimen. Also interesting that it was being cabbed and might have ended up as a fashion accessory.
I'm most curious how that critter got its butt stuck in a puddle of resin.
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Post by tims on Dec 10, 2016 22:33:52 GMT -5
Nice shine, i bet there are some fun surprises with a bulk batch like that.
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Post by tims on Dec 8, 2016 23:30:21 GMT -5
I assume some of those will get cut but many are gorgeous specimens as found. The fossil exterior of your first piece is just spectacular.
And 80 degrees? I have frost on the inside of my living room windows.
I gotta get to Texas.
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Post by tims on Dec 6, 2016 12:48:00 GMT -5
That wintery willow is pretty. I've got a handful of blue chalcedony that I've ignored because it's so plain but those cabs are beautiful.
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Post by tims on Dec 3, 2016 16:07:54 GMT -5
tims, I see a big issue. I have run the big 50lb unit for a few years and I predict you may have a problem. These things generate heat when running, and the rock load warms up. When you shut it off, the grit that has found its way into the cracks and holes in the rocks dries and turns to cement from the residual heat in the unit. The only remedy (short of possible using a high-pressure dry cleaning spot sprayer like a Babbs) is to start back at rough grind. I learned this the hard way. It's the bad part of vibratory units, the amount of babysitting they need. If you let the load dry out, you may as well plan on starting over. You can't shut the unit off and think "I'll rinse these off tomorrow". I'm OCD about babysitting, generally pop the top every 3-4 hours except if it runs overnight. Haven't run in summer yet so the load gets warm but never hot so far. jamesp i wish i knew more about motors, the $ difference between those motors is pretty huge for just the duty rating but maybe it's important enough to be worth the extra dough. Got my QT-12 and it's rolling with the same load plus a handful of new rough to fill it up. I hope the 20 Tbsp of grit (46/70) in the manual isn't total overkill like the Viking. I'll run one batch by the book and maybe start getting more creative from there, very interested in the clay etc. to try to speed things up.
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Post by tims on Dec 3, 2016 15:46:00 GMT -5
That sounds like a garage bomb waiting to happen, flammable and potentially explosive.
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Post by tims on Nov 28, 2016 13:30:59 GMT -5
I guess if i'm just using this for shaping the 33b with 2 small barrels would be kind of stupid. QT12 isn't much more money. Plus i'm assuming i could get away with running it in the house through the winter, small enough to haul out in the yard with a couple buckets of hot water for cleanouts.
The learning curve on yet another machine worries me, but either i let these rocks sit, give them away, or do something fun with them. Will probably be begging advice on rotary from yall in a month or so.
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Post by tims on Nov 27, 2016 20:34:09 GMT -5
You're going to talk me into more equipment Jim. Been considering a lortone 33b for awhile and i still haven't got myself anything for xmas ...
The material is about half yard finds and half collected at random spots around the black hills. Only a few pieces were prepped at all, small slabs and end pieces. All the pet wood is yard stuff and i've got piles of prettier stuff my grandparents collected, plus lots of jasper and some boulder agates, but i'm afraid to play with their goodies until i know what i'm doing. They collected all over wyoming and the black hills for 50 years and i'm still working on unearthing the tons of material they left behind.
Of the stuff i collected there's some teepee canyon agate, and all the round gray ones are from teepee ... i'm not sure what they are but i find lots of them and they're naturally smooth and round. Also find alot of red jasper and white and blue chalcedony at teepee and vicinity. There's also some small stuff i picked up at buffalo gap while failing to find fairburns. Very mixed bag, i was just grabbing anything that looked hard and was about the right size and that wouldn't make me cry if i ruined it.
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Post by tims on Nov 27, 2016 17:19:07 GMT -5
Supposed to snow tonight so I think i'm done for the season. I didn't set my expectations low enough, this is a pretty disappointing first go. This is my mess, if anything looks shiny it's still a little wet:
The quartz I stacked to the left because it was easy to sort, then the semi-ok pieces, with utter fails on the right. The right side filled up quick. I've got a lot of material that must be softer than I thought, some that wore through to softer material inside, and a whole bunch that needs to go through the 80 stage another time or 2.
This is 144 hours total but probably a couple days wasted running degraded 220. Next year i'm going to be far more particular with what goes in to tumble, plus hopefully it will be an ongoing process where I can pull things out and set them aside for advanced stages instead of trying to run one batch from start to finish.
Here is a little better look at the semi-gloss finish I got on smoother pieces:
Thanks for all the advice along the way --- hopefully I can put it to better use next year.
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Post by tims on Nov 26, 2016 18:21:14 GMT -5
Saw your Rios, they are sweet. You just ran 220 then 500 to finish?
I'm trying to rush the finish on my load as it's supposed to get wintery Monday, and considered ending with 500 which i'd run about 18 hours ... decided to just keep it in the resulting 500 mud and add a little AO polish overnight tonight and see what happens. Since i'm cleaning out in my yard i've been sticking with sugar and avoiding borax, although if i have time might run a short cleaning cycle with regular laundry or dish soap. No biggie there though as i'll have a few months to hand clean everything if it comes to it.
My mud with 500 is way thinner than the 80 / 220 cycles and i see the separation issue almost immediately now. Before adding the polish i pulled out all the larger rocks that had gathered on one side and pushed the pea gravel from the other side over, then put the big rocks where the gravel had gathered. Turned it back on and in 5 minutes everything had swapped sides again, so i guess it will be what it will be. I'm not expecting great results but am excited to finish up this first batch and hopefully carry over the learning experience when spring rolls back around.
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Post by tims on Nov 23, 2016 9:27:38 GMT -5
That's a beast. I could see where you might want an extra set of springs under it.
The way this machine is built it seems like the ultimate platform for fabbing custom barrels, especially with the price for OEM replacements. ~$700 for a new one is pricy. Still, you probably couldn't dent one of the originals with an atomic bomb so there must be some used ones out there gathering dust somewhere ...
As for quartz gravel I know where to gather some good stuff when it warms up again, the spot I pick garnets is right near an old gold (I think) mine with a big discard pile of big quartz chunks and there's gravel-sized quartz all over up there.
Glad you're up and running again.
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