surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
|
Post by surreality on Feb 12, 2012 13:03:05 GMT -5
I don't know what sort of progress I am expecting -- I know it will be slow -- but I did expect to see some kind of slurry starting to build up after a day in the rotary, and that's not happening beyond a very thin glaze of stone dust and grit. I'm using a Lortone 3A. It doesn't seem like there is too much water in the barrel; I actually almost wonder if I added too little. I had read that the Lortone instructions were a little too watery, so I used a tiny bit less than the 'to the bottom of the top level of stones' suggestion by the diagram. It doesn't seem to be too dry, though. The stones I'm starting with, though, aren't from the rough pack that came with the kit. They're beach stones -- what kind I'm not entirely sure but they appear to be all the same type -- and are pre-smoothed to some extent. They're nubbly, and not perfectly smoothed by any stretch of the imagination, but they don't have the sharp points that I'd imagine are first to go in a first round of tumbling. The picture attached isn't the ones that went into the bin, but it's a good representative sample of the 'smoothness' I'm starting with. (That's from a huge bucket; I went through to find things as similar to one another as possible for the batch save for size.) They're not the most amazing specimens to be sure, but there's some translucence in the protrusions in the ones thrown in that I think could prove promising once ground down. I'd imagine those sharp points are often the first to break down, and since there aren't any sharp points to break down, the slurry may be slower to develop? Should I expect this stage to take considerably longer as a result, since I gather the slurry works along with the grit to break down and smooth the stones? (I figure it may balance out some since they're a little pre-smoothed, but that might work against me here, too.) Attachments:
|
|
herchenx
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2012
Posts: 3,360
|
Post by herchenx on Feb 12, 2012 15:21:36 GMT -5
Surreality,
I definitely find that when I put smoother rocks in the slurry has developed more slowly. I have been using some more jagged, porous stone to help my slurry. I've been using broken hickoryite (it has like 10 different names, also "wonderstone") as an add-in.
Maybe let it go another day or 2. I seriously doubt you have too little water though. Can you post a pic with the slurry?
Hang in there, let it go a lot longer and see what develops. My 2 cents.
|
|
surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
|
Post by surreality on Feb 12, 2012 15:36:47 GMT -5
That's great advice. Thank you, John!
I do have the mixed jasper rough pack the tumbler came with, and I'm thinking of maybe tossing a few of the smaller chips in if it doesn't look a little more gravy-like in a day or so. I hadn't considered that before loading it initially, but I might look into getting a few more packs like that to mix in for filler so there's something jaggy in the mix.
I'll get a pic around this time tomorrow and see how it's looking. I can tell it's grinding off some of that outer 'casing' layer on a lot of the stones since the nubbly bits are increasingly visible, so it's definitely doing something. I suspect I'll have a better idea when the vibe gets here and progress might be a little faster.
I have about 40+ pounds of the stones like those pictured just on hand now, and it's almost frighteningly easy to drag another 40+ pounds back over the course of a day where I collect them, so I'm hoping I'll find a good method to get them going. I have fairly high hopes for them, since I sometimes find cracked ones with some lovely druzy pockets, others considerably more opaque when cracked with banded interiors, and even a few that seem to be ocean jasper (which seems completely impossible to me to find on a beach in New Jersey, but that sure is what they look like; those I have been setting aside since I keep reading it's a very finicky material when I suspect them, and there's not a lot of 'em compared to the rest). I keep wishing I had a saw to split a few just to get a hint of what they really are!
|
|
StoneCrazy
spending too much on rocks
Stone Crazy
Member since July 2011
Posts: 331
|
Post by StoneCrazy on Feb 13, 2012 13:36:41 GMT -5
Sounds like you are getting addicted. I bought myself a tile saw at Lowes. Its a Skilsaw and they are pretty cheep. You can use them to cut small slabs and to help shape them. But go real slow. I already wore my blade down.
|
|
|
Post by johnjsgems on Feb 13, 2012 19:13:56 GMT -5
No slurry in one day sounds like you need more patience. Run at least three days and check. Then if too watery add a little more grit and/or dump a little water. Too thick add a little water. One day? Reminds of a guy that bought a tumbler from me when I first started selling them. He wanted to return it the next day. I asked him if something was wrong with the tumbler. He said it doesn't work. He ran it all night and the rocks never did get finished.
|
|
surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
|
Post by surreality on Feb 15, 2012 2:53:11 GMT -5
Oh jeez. I can't imagine expecting them to be done in a day! *laugh* I probably would have had to leave the room, crack up loudly, and walk back in when I could keep a straight face. I'm just not sure when to expect to see any buildup -- or if I'd managed to do something profoundly dumb from day one. There was a fair bit when I checked earlier today, so this is definitely sage advice -- day three gets marked down as the official day to to peek.
|
|
|
Post by Jack ( Yorkshire) on Feb 15, 2012 3:39:36 GMT -5
Hi
One thing no one has mentioned is hardness of the rocks if some are soft you wont get a good finish
I polish a lot of beach rocks I use them as fillers but I have always scratch tested each rock befor using them and there is still the odd few rocks that just will not polish even after passing this test
If im starting from Zero ( no goop to seed the batch ) I add a few tea spoons of a dry granulated walpaper glue to alter thickness or some people add a bit of Ivory soap to get the grit mobile in the barrel
BUT waite 3 or 4 days as John above says then the water should be grey and all the rocks covered grey also as the grit starts to work
My Double 10 Cts worth ! ! !
Jack Yorkshire uk
|
|
surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
|
Post by surreality on Feb 15, 2012 4:07:56 GMT -5
These are definitely pretty hard from what I can tell. I culled a number of them out of the buckets that seemed either porous or chalky at a glance; a lot of the imbedded fossil pieces or impressions seemed to be in a more chalky base, for instance.
A lot of what's on that beach is quartz -- so I'm fairly paranoid about what's going in together since I'd read quartz has a habit of causing undercutting or pitting the other stones and I'd rather those all go in together when they do. (I did my best to make sure none of those ended up in the batch.) Quartz scratched it all but wasn't scratched by any, it all scratched glass, and steel was hit or miss either way so I'm thinking it's all at least fairly close -- or so I'm hoping!
|
|