gazingm42
starting to shine!
Member since July 2014
Posts: 45
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Post by gazingm42 on Mar 30, 2015 11:46:56 GMT -5
So question ....
I normally change my rocks in the barrels on Friday night. But work has been crazy and family time so I have not replaced it a few times for 3 weeks. So what damage am I doing to the rocks?
Is this improving the rocks?
Thanks
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Post by pauls on Mar 30, 2015 15:17:44 GMT -5
It should be OK. If you have a mix of hard and soft rocks the soft ones sometimes need a short time in the tumbler and will grind away to nothing, but for rocks like Agate, Pet Wood etc that are hard then the longer time will just improve them. Over the course of several weeks your grit will beak down to finer and finer anyway, I know people who go straight from 46 Grit to polish but they leave their rocks in the tumbler for months so by that time what is left of the grit is very very fine. Oh and they tumble just one type of material, Agate.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,681
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Post by Fossilman on Mar 30, 2015 16:45:43 GMT -5
Should be just fine..Sometimes the longer you run them,the better off they are!!
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riverrock
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since April 2010
Posts: 1,395
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Post by riverrock on Mar 30, 2015 19:07:18 GMT -5
Only one way to find out for sure . Open it up.
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KathyG
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since February 2015
Posts: 85
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Post by KathyG on Mar 31, 2015 18:28:10 GMT -5
Over the course of several weeks your grit will beak down to finer and finer anyway, I know people who go straight from 46 Grit to polish but they leave their rocks in the tumbler for months so by that time what is left of the grit is very very fine. Oh and they tumble just one type of material, Agate. That is interesting. I wonder if that works with all rocks? That would be much easier to just let the course grit go for that long, then poof! Polish. It would save money on grit also. I don't dare try it, though. I'm only on my first tumble. Ever. No Vibe yet so I'm just going to do lots of Stage 1's and keep them going and keep the Stage 2's until I get a nice vibe. And do the proper grit sequence. Do those people use the same tumbler the whole time? Or do they just transfer the whole barrel contents to a vibe for quicker results?
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peachfront
fully equipped rock polisher
Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them.
Member since August 2010
Posts: 1,745
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Post by peachfront on Mar 31, 2015 19:59:23 GMT -5
Is it a rotary? I think it's good for the rocks but sometimes it's bad for the equipment maybe? The lid liner of my tumblers sometimes gets a gas in it and if I forget about it for too long I've had the rubber in the lid liner to burst. So I try to open up every 5 days no matter what and kind of press on the rubber lid liner so it doesn't get gassy.
Maybe I'm the only person this happens to?
Also if it's super soft material it can literally just seem to turn into water and disappear. Really I prefer to check every 5 days. Doing it once a week would be easier to remember but I just put on the calender when I last did it since I'm not comfortable letting it go from week to week.
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Post by braders on Mar 31, 2015 21:30:28 GMT -5
Over the course of several weeks your grit will beak down to finer and finer anyway, I know people who go straight from 46 Grit to polish but they leave their rocks in the tumbler for months so by that time what is left of the grit is very very fine. Oh and they tumble just one type of material, Agate. That is interesting. I wonder if that works with all rocks? That would be much easier to just let the course grit go for that long, then poof! Polish. It would save money on grit also. I don't dare try it, though. I'm only on my first tumble. Ever. No Vibe yet so I'm just going to do lots of Stage 1's and keep them going and keep the Stage 2's until I get a nice vibe. And do the proper grit sequence. Do those people use the same tumbler the whole time? Or do they just transfer the whole barrel contents to a vibe for quicker results? There is quite a few of us here that roll only coarse in a roto then on to the vibe also if ya let coarse go to long you end up with some ewwwy goooy thick rock snot i never tried adding water and letting it roll more tho lol. I wanna chew them rocks then move on to the vib.
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Post by captbob on Apr 1, 2015 10:48:07 GMT -5
There is no such thing as "too long in the tumbler" with a rotary.
Could be downsides which don't effect the rock load though.
There are some mineral types which may off gas, especially during early stages, and lack of attention could lead to a pressure build up which could possibly cause a load to blow out on some tumbler models.
Tumbler wear would probably be limited to the lid liner. Lids and lid liners are cheap, have extras on hand.
Providing that time is not a concern, the extra electricity cost is the only other negative that I can think of.
So, the short answer is that (unless you are running a material which may off gas and blow slurry all over the place if too much pressure builds up in the barrel) running rocks longer than you had planned between checking on them is no big deal. The rocks won't care.
That's the beauty of rotary tumblers.
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Henry
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2013
Posts: 452
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Post by Henry on Apr 2, 2015 20:11:55 GMT -5
I'm just a "junior" on this board. But what i've learned...especially with harder stones....grind, grind, GRIND. Sometimes it's taken months in coarse grind to get some of my Montana agates up to snuff.
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