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Post by tims on Sept 30, 2016 21:16:58 GMT -5
Mounting my motor horizontally seemed weird but with a decent length belt it seems to work fine. barclay I think my belt tension is ok --- it doesn't seem to slip or anything, but i'm new to belts and pulleys so if you see an obvious problem please let me know. I had a couple interruptions but the saw ran continuously for at least 40 minutes and nothing seemed to get hot.
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Post by tims on Sept 29, 2016 22:54:48 GMT -5
Sawing rock with exspensive lapiday blades is better slower than faster. Try for a inch or so every 15 minutes with my gravity feed. I use a gallon jug of water that way it's easy to adjust. You really need to have a auto cut off switch. Gravity is better because if the rock changes hardness as u saw it only slows down and the blade survives. Any idea what your "normal" weight range would be? I'm thinking 1.5 pounds is on the light side. And what do you mean by auto cut-off? Would that power off the saw at the end of the cut, or some kind of overload switch for if it binds? I definitely need a more accessible power switch and a manual kill switch wouldn't hurt either. I don't know much about wiring or safety precautions with saws so any advice is greatly appreciated.
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Post by tims on Sept 29, 2016 22:28:38 GMT -5
Thats great to know, especially the recommendation on a specific blade. I am curious though, a 10 inch blade fits a 7 inch saw? Unfortunately that specific blade isn't available in the UK, but I can work from the datasheet. I had to modify the saw some; cut a wider gap where the blade passes through the table, raised the height of the saw and moved the guard for clearance, and fashioned a new splash shroud and water pan. All fairly easy to do if you have tools and some free time. I didn't get many pictures of the process but this is the end result: It cuts quickly and makes decent cuts although I'm sure they're much rougher than a real lapidary saw. The 10" blade gave me almost twice as much cutting depth, from about 1.5" to just under 3".
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Post by tims on Sept 29, 2016 4:06:00 GMT -5
Thanks. All my equipment is outside or in unheated space so if I'm lucky I'll have about 2 months before it is to cold to play in the water. I have 3 diamond disk now a 80 grit a 180 and a 360, need to buy some of their finer grit disk but that purchase is going to have to wait for awhile. Should be able to get some preforms cut for the tumbler before it is to cold. Good luck with your 10". Post some pics here if you get a chance. Use this thread if you want. Here's a dry run with the lap plate: I got an MK-303 blade and did one cut last evening; it took about 90 minutes to cut through a 1.5" x 3" chert. Thinking maybe i need more weight on the gravity feed. Does yours have a weight setup attached to the clamp for an auto feed? Are you planning to use it as a saw or just stick with the lap? A minute of cutting: I definitely need to buy a 2L bottle of something, had to fill that cup about 20 times for the 1 cut Hope your machines are coming along, and am looking forward to seeing what you do with them.
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Post by tims on Sept 29, 2016 0:22:55 GMT -5
About any tile saw would probably work OK with a good blade. I put a 10" Dewalt DW4764 porcelain blade on a generic 7" tile saw a buddy gave me, and it walks right through jasper and agate. The blade was suggested by a user here (thanks rockjunquie) and i got the idea from others on this board who'd had success slabbing with tile saws, so if you browse this topic you'll probably find much more info. I use a weak mix of water-soluble oil from jsgems but you'd probably be fine with plain water. Rolling your rock as you cut sounds completely plausible ... i guess you'd want to make sure your saw platform is sturdy enough for the heavy lunkers and that the splash-guard etc. didn't interfere with what you're trying to cut.
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Post by tims on Sept 28, 2016 23:57:00 GMT -5
Finally bought a blade for my refurbished B&I 10" Gem Maker, and went with the MK-303 .040 10" blade. I'm running the blade 1:1 from a 1725rpm motor, which is at the bottom end of MK's suggested RPM (1720 - 2290).
My question is, how fast should this blade cut hard material ~mohs7?
My first / only cut was an oblong jasp-agate, approximately 3" long and 1.5" thick. I mounted the rock in the clamp with the longer side facing the blade (pretty sure that didn't help). The B&I has a gravity feed and I had 1.5 pounds of weight on the line. The cut went smoothly but took around 90 minutes ... is that normal?
The only saw i have for comparison is a 7" tile saw rigged with a 10" ceramic blade, which would cut the same stone in a minute or 2. I realize the tile saw will cut much faster but it seems maybe i'm doing something wrong to have it take soooo long.
Would increasing the RPMs make a significant difference? Do i need to add more weight? Am i just being impatient? Any tips are appreciated.
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Post by tims on Sept 28, 2016 21:46:51 GMT -5
Thanks Mel. I'll take your advice and keep it as-is.
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Post by tims on Sept 28, 2016 3:05:22 GMT -5
Wanted to add that this rock has a faint odor ... it reminds me of the smell of a handful of pennies from an old change jar, kind of musty and metallic.
Maybe a moqui ball / iron concretion? If so wouldn't it attract to a strong magnet?
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Post by tims on Sept 25, 2016 18:37:44 GMT -5
Those little agates are awesome I'm going to pan out my dirt buckets and hopefully have some extra smalls.
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Post by tims on Sept 25, 2016 18:32:58 GMT -5
This is a yard find. The surface feels like sandstone but it's got good heft and a couple small wear spots that show a dark, smoother material inside. Not magnetic. The surface looks like it might be studded with tiny garnet, but I've been playing with garnet for a week so maybe I have garnet on the brain.
It's so round and cool looking I kind of hate to cut into it ... thanks for looking.
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Post by tims on Sept 25, 2016 18:24:31 GMT -5
Forgot these baculite segments, they look polished in the centers but I think this is their natural state:
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Post by tims on Sept 25, 2016 18:04:50 GMT -5
How large/hard is that last piece? Have seen similar specimens identified as types of kitchen tools. Used for cutting and grinding within the small pocket. Sort of a cut the herbs/bark and then grind it. It's about 3" long and the pockets are 1/2" - 3/4" diameter ... I'd call the material a bumpy chert and it's quite hard, a nail doesn't seem to scratch it. The pockets are slightly discolored with dark stains. The pockets aren't completely smooth; you can still feel little bumps in the stone. That's a real nice find and I'd be stoked to find something like that. You might have stumbled on an old campsite, probably more artifacts to be found in the area. And being away from the house prevents ya from working the Honeydew list. :0 I know there are more goodies in the area, but it's my back yard so no escape from house work These are out of sunken piles of misc. rock that were collected decades ago and were left by my aging grandparents and subsequent tenants to sink back into the ground. They used to be in neat piles and displayed on wooden tables but the tables have long since disintegrated and now it's a scavenger hunt.
Here's a better shot of the one with divots:
A couple bone pieces:
Leaves:
A fish?
Snail
Thanks for looking.
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Post by tims on Sept 24, 2016 17:00:25 GMT -5
Those are pretty chalcopyrite just as specimens. It's gorgeous stuff and seems pretty solid, but mine tends to fracture and fall apart just from normal handling.
I'm a newb and like to see treasures in everything so these questions come to mind: Could the cream-yellow pieces be common opal? Is the purpley quartz considered amethyst? Is the one with the smooth cratered rind an agate? Are the black spots in that pink material crystals (maybe tourmaline)? Forgive me if these are dumb questions. That is a colorful collection of specimens.
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Garnet
Sept 24, 2016 16:02:13 GMT -5
Post by tims on Sept 24, 2016 16:02:13 GMT -5
I might try to shine up the 1/2" one, it's very ugly as it sits and maybe big enough to work with. I broke down and dug out my old WinXP compatible camera and the PC to go with it for a couple better pics:
These do tend to get dark and rough the bigger they are, but there is one big one that's nice and purple and has some smooth natural faces. I'm rained in today but have a couple buckets full of dirt to work through that should yield at least another little pile of smalls.
Garage Rocker how much would be required to use for media? Would a handful of really small garnet do you any good?
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Garnet
Sept 24, 2016 2:37:48 GMT -5
Post by tims on Sept 24, 2016 2:37:48 GMT -5
Hey @shotgunner, i'm waiting on a pan to test some of the material. Did some rough panning today with an old garbage pan lid but it's not very effective. Honestly i'm more interested in kicking shiny rocks than getting invested in chasing gold, but that could change quickly if i actually found some gold ... gemfeller, thanks for the information. I think the garnet in this area is mostly pyrope. As for the color difference there were 3 factors: I had better light in the first pic, the first batch had been rinsed better, and the first batch was mostly smaller with better color. I mixed everything together now and gave them a good soak and rinse and will get another pic in sunlight if / when i get some sun. If there's nothing to lose with these i may try polishing up some of the existing facets on the bigger ones. Just dop them on a toothpick or something and start with an intermediate to fine grit? I'm still just a collector with novice experience working stone. With rocks it seems like you either need to specialize, or have a whole lot of time to learn.
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Garnet
Sept 23, 2016 13:52:32 GMT -5
Post by tims on Sept 23, 2016 13:52:32 GMT -5
There is a tiny bit of black sand. The soil is like a layer of fist-size and bigger rock covered by maybe an inch of fine powdery dirt, mixed in spots with tiny quartz gravel / sand. Maybe if you could find a cavity in the layer of larger rock that had filled with dirt and sand you could find some goodies, but everyplace I tried to dig I was only able to scrape up the thin layer of soil above the rock layer. I'm guessing if you could dredge the mud out of a spot in that creek and get to rock underneath it would be full of small heavy material but that's probably a bigger operation than I want to tackle. I'm hoping maybe in the spring some of the mud will wash out and expose rock and sand in spots but will have to wait and see. I enjoy picking pebbles too much to let it turn into work
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Post by tims on Sept 22, 2016 23:52:17 GMT -5
Can't see your photo cactusfire ... they need to be hosted off-site at photobucket etc. I think there are a few tutorials on here, including basic instructions at Welcome / Welcome to RTH.
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Post by tims on Sept 22, 2016 23:32:29 GMT -5
That's gorgeous agate. Hopefully just a display specimen? That as a pendant could seriously hurt somebody.
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Post by tims on Sept 22, 2016 23:24:56 GMT -5
Bah, my phone ate my last 30 or so pictures. Anyway, luckily my excavations have been limited to the perimeter of the property so far.
Trying to work this 50' stretch from both ends but it's slow going.
Got pictures of what looks like a little knife and a scraper but they're awful pics, i'll have to wait for some sun and shoot them outdoors. These are pretty bad tablet pics too but I'm itching to get an opinion. This thing doesn't look naturally formed but I am clueless what it would be for:
Any guesses?
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Post by tims on Sept 22, 2016 23:05:08 GMT -5
Hello nice little finds always fun can not be worse then picking Apache tears on ruby moutain Co. The ROCK Shop YOU ToOK The little bottle to, was it called Ken's minerals and trading post? I had a similar experience there, nice little shop though, I'm from Colorado and try to make it to custer state park every other year, for rockhounding and fun, No, it wasn't Ken's.
Do they let you collect rock in the state park? I've heard horror stories about gung-ho park rangers but haven't had to tangle with them personally. I stick to BLM and Forest Service exclusively just to be safe.
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