Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 3, 2015 19:32:31 GMT -5
The little Model T tumbler that I got my daughters 20(?) years ago got filled up today by my *granddaughters*. They are 4-1/2 and 8-1/2 years old and were all gung-ho about tumbling rocks. I tried to explain to them the grinding process and how long it will take, hopefully some of it sunk in with them...I've got more hope with the 8-1/2 year old than I do with the 4-1/2 yo but...you never can tell. The first thing we did was oil the bushings and put a new belt on the tumbler...that helped them see how it worked. They knew we were going to do this and had picked up some rocks on a trip they made over to the Chattahoochee River with their parents. I have no idea what the rocks were, but looked river tumbled and I'm sure there was one piece of pet wood in the mix. The girls eagerly put the rocks in the barrel but there were only about twelve or fifteen rocks of about 1" in size so they didn't fill the tumbler up very full. They finished the load out with some nice beach tumbled unakite a new friend had mailed me (thanks Rob!!!)...a couple of largish rocks and the rest 1 to 1-1/2 inches. With this we added a small handful of some white quartz gravel for smalls. (Btw, what size is considered a "small"?) I did not have any of my grit from the Rockshed here at the house so we opened up an old Thumler grit kit box and used the "Coarse" (whatever it is). This was the only mistake/accident we really had....while I was cutting open the back my oldest granddaughter wanted to touch the back. She kind of squeezed the bag and the 20+ year old bag split open on the bottom, dumping a good bit of the coarse grit into the palm of her hand. I wasn't sure how dangerous that grit was so I carried her outside and washed her hands off under a garden hose...the grit washed off easily with no apparent issues. A question I have is..."Is the grit dangerous to the skin?". I know to the eyes it would be bad, but simply getting on the skin...is it a big issue or not? Anyhow, we had to quickly dump the coarse grit into the barrel and we salvaged what was on the table so I didn't get to measure it....I feel like it was more than enough, though....probably more than 4 tablespoons worth. They proceeded to add roughly 8 tablespoons of water to the barrel...I checked the barrel by tipping it over until I saw water appear at the wall of the barrel. Some of the tablespoons were a little low (4-1/2 year olds aren't exactly precise with things ) so I added a couple of extra spoonfuls. We put the lid on and I sat the barrel on the rollers while they waited expectantly. I plugged the tumbler in and they were excited to see the barrel rolling along and the sound of the rocks inside. The sound of the rocks tumbling is much louder than my inner-tube lined pvc barrel that I have tumbling on the old Model A. I'm beginning to wonder if I don't have enough water in this one (the granddaughter's Model T). I'll check it later this week and see what's going on with it. But, should the Thumler 3# barrel be louder than my homemade pvc one? Anyhow, I think the girls were pretty excited and it will give them something to tinker with for months to come now...and teach them a little about patience while they're at it. I don't know who enjoyed it the most...them or me.
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Post by Jugglerguy on Oct 3, 2015 22:00:04 GMT -5
I don't think you need to worry about touching silicon carbide grit. I wouldn't suggest eating it though. It would probably be scratchy on the way in and on the way out.
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 3, 2015 22:02:34 GMT -5
Thanks for your thought on that, Rob. I didn't know if it was something that might irritate the skin or not. We had no ill affects from it.
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Oct 4, 2015 13:49:27 GMT -5
Nothing better than getting the grandkids involved with the rock hounding..........
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verhexen
having dreams about rocks
Member since June 2015
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Post by verhexen on Oct 4, 2015 14:13:13 GMT -5
Awesome! Hope they stay interested and tumble lots of beautiful rocks!
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
Posts: 1,910
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 4, 2015 15:23:16 GMT -5
Thanks ya'll!!! I hope they stay interested. The only problem around here is there isn't really much natural rocks to be found. We'll figure out something, though, as it'd be fun to have then rockhounding with me!!!
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
Posts: 1,910
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 6, 2015 10:28:29 GMT -5
I'm wondering a little about the load in the Model T. The noise it's making in the Thumler rubber barrel seems to have a more "clunky" sound to it whereas the load in the pvc barrel rolling on the Model A has more of a wet, grinding sound to it.
I pretty much added the same amount of water to the rubber barrel as I did to the pvc barrel in regards to proportions.
One difference in the loads is that the rubber-lined pvc barrel had a good deal of rectangular, long slender, squarish, and flat pieces in it while the Thumler rubber barrel had river and lake tumbled rounder rocks in it. Also, there were some larger rocks in the rubber barrel than in the pvc barrel.
Both barrels had a 1/2 pound of 1/8-1/2 inch white quartz smalls added to the load.
I didn't want to open the barrels up until a week had passed, but I'm wondering if I need to check my granddaughter's barrel (the rubber one) and see if I need to add more water or something.
Thoughts, anyone?
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
Posts: 1,910
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 17, 2015 22:17:23 GMT -5
Well, I kept hoping the granddaughters would be here so we could check the Model T out but it's been two weeks so I decided to go ahead and check the rocks out. The grit was the "coarse" package out of a Thumler Grit Kit...it was in the tumbler for two weeks. The rocks looked well formed and the slurry was nice a smooth...and sticky-seeming. I picked probably over half the rocks out that I think are "good" and returned the rest for more tumbling. I added several unakite rocks and (hopefully I didn't mess up at this stage) some pieces of pet wood. I added a good palm-full of small aquarium gravel and another pack of Thumler coarse grit. I left a bit of the old slurry in the bottom of the barrel to get things going along with 10 table spoons of water. I'll let this go for a week or two and see how it looks. Here's how the load looked after I rinsed them off...the load consists of unakite that Rob sent me and some miscellaneous gravel from the Chattahoochee River that my granddaughters picked up...the very small whitish pieces are some white gravel I used for smalls. Other than the unakite I have no idea what any of the Chattahoochee rocks are... IMG_7302a (Custom) by Intheswamp, on Flickr
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Post by Jugglerguy on Oct 18, 2015 7:10:32 GMT -5
Those are coming along nicely. Roll them until they're perfect!
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Intheswamp
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Posts: 1,910
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 18, 2015 7:22:37 GMT -5
I'm curious as to what the rocks with the red dots might be in the edited image below. I don't recall these being in the granddaughter's group of rocks, but they had some black-stained ones in the mix...the only other thing they could be would be the unakite, but they don't have the greens and reds. They resemble the piece with the green dot on it (center of picture) which I'm pretty sure is a piece of pet wood of some kind...it had the "wood look" about it. Any ideas? Also, the upper left hand corner there are a couple of rocks that look like white quartz that has an algae coating on them...but they've been tumbled...and ideas on these. Lastly, at the bottom, almost centered is a teardrop shaped piece with a speckled pattern...I'm almost thinking this one might have some pyrite in it which if it does I'll remove from tumbling... Thanks for looking! IMG_7302a (Custom) by Intheswamp, on Flickr
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Post by Jugglerguy on Oct 18, 2015 19:34:24 GMT -5
I don't know what the red dot rocks are, they didn't come from me. The teardrop rock looks like granite, but it's hard to tell from the picture. The green and white mossy rock might have come from me, but I can't say for sure. I pick up most green rocks I find in Lake Superior. Sometimes they contain white quartz.
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 19, 2015 8:46:32 GMT -5
Well, I'll keep tumbling the brown speckled (red dot) rocks and see how they turn out. I'm pretty sure (that means not totally sure ) that the green rocks in the upper left hand corner were some of the granddaughters' rocks. Next clean-out I'll get a closer shot of them. I'm pretty sure all the rocks that you sent me were good examples of unakite and easily id'd. Thanks for the feedback, Rob!
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Intheswamp
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Post by Intheswamp on Oct 31, 2015 23:12:17 GMT -5
The granddaughters were here this evening so we went into the rocks. We opened the barrel and the girls got to see the slurry...they wanted to know where the rocks were. Well, it wasn't optimal conditions...it'd already got dark and I don't have a place outside that is lighted to wash rocks but we "made do". After I got'em clean we carried them in where they could paw them and ask "what's this". Anyhow, they got a kick out of it. I decided to go on to stage 2 this time. I'm using up some Thumler grit packs and this is stated as "Fine Grit" (the next two bags being "pre-polish" and "polish". Well, I rinsed off the rocks good but decided to do a wash in the barrel. Now, sitting here, I'm suddenly at a blank as to whether I used Oxyclean or Gain detergent....hmmmm. Oh well, whichever it was it made a mess. I went back out and the barrel had leaked, blah, blah, blah. I won't use either of those again! I had let it run for probably 30-45 minutes. The water was clear when I loaded it, but it was dark gray when I opened the barrel...and I thought the rocks were pretty clean from handwashing...I'm a believer in washing now, just gotta get on something that works without foaming too much. Borax is recommended alot, but I'd rather have something more "earth friendly"...not that I'm a big tree hugger, just want something not quiet so toxic. Anyhow, I'll be washing between stages from now on... Well, once I cleaned the leaked mess up (glad it was outside in the garage) and washed the rocks and barrel off with clean water I went through the rocks and picked out ones I saw pits and crevices in. I probably didn't get all of them, but if I saw a pit I culled the rock. Once I culled the rejects I loaded the barrel up. I had previously pulled several rocks from the first coarse tumble so with them added to these rocks it made a nice load that was about as close to 75% full as I could probably get. The only thing I was a bit concerned about were the smalls...there may have been some with pits as I basically scanned over them, picked a few out and dumped the rest into the barrel...hopefully none were holding any coarse grit. After all the rocks were in the barrel I added some Metamucil....1 teaspoon full along with 1/2 teaspoon of clorox and 10-11 tablespoons of water. I sealed the barrel up and thought about how smart I was. I then unsealed the barrel and added the "Fine Grit" package to the barrel! I checked the barrel for leaks and all looked good. Sat it back on the tumbler and away we go again. I'm going to walk outside in a minute and make sure it hasn't started leaking. Here's a shot of some of the unakite that I got from Rob Jugglerguy... IMG_7363a (Custom) by Intheswamp, on Flickr
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Post by Jugglerguy on Nov 1, 2015 7:51:10 GMT -5
Looking good, Ed! I've had a problem with Dreft soap in my rotary barrels lately. I've used it to wash rocks like you did and the water came out black. I know it wasn't the rocks that made it that black, so it had to be the barrel. There was no noticeable deterioration of the barrel, but I think there was some sort of reaction with the rubber and the Dreft. I hadn't had that problem with the Lot-O barrel. I wonder if your detergent did something similar.
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Intheswamp
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Post by Intheswamp on Nov 1, 2015 8:30:11 GMT -5
That is interesting about your Dreft turning the water black. Now, you definitely have me wondering whether it was dirty rocks or the detergent doing something to the barrel. I feel like it was the Oxyclean that I used, but can't remember for sure...I had been thinking about using it so that's probably what I used. So maybe washing the rocks *didn't* help clean them much?
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Post by Jugglerguy on Nov 1, 2015 8:35:22 GMT -5
By the way, I posted on here about my Dreft turning the water black and no one else had ever had that happen. It was black like paint though, not gray like slurry water.
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Intheswamp
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Post by Intheswamp on Nov 1, 2015 9:31:33 GMT -5
Yes, I read that thread...strange when a lot of folks said they'd never ran into it. I wonder if possibly your barrel had a different rubber blend to it?
I looked for regular Dreft a while back and could not find it...only liquid baby detergent Dreft...even on Dreft's own website. Just now I searched...and found it right off the bat. Go figure, eh? It would be interesting to see if it would react again with that barrel or if it "cleansed it" of whatever it washed out. Not curious enough for you to damage your barrel, of course.
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Intheswamp
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Post by Intheswamp on Nov 1, 2015 21:57:12 GMT -5
I'm thinking of using Ivory Soap shavings for between-stage washing. I'll be doing most stages past coarse in a Lot-O, but will probably do some in a 3# rotary. How much Ivory Soap do you think would be good to use? I'm thinking about a tablespoon.
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
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Post by Intheswamp on Feb 2, 2016 11:19:49 GMT -5
After a lengthy absence I'm continuing on with this saga... Seems we had a serious slurry/rock throw-up situation. My wife told me something had happened to the Model T....that she didn't hear it running in the garage, checked it, and slurry and rock had poured out of it...she also smelled a "burned rubber smell". Well, I cleaned things up, threw the rocks in some water and cleaned the Model T up the best I could. The lid had been pointed towards the pulled-end of the machine so it really made a mess (point taken...point barrels away from pulleys!). This tumbler is at the house, away from the other tumblers (at the shop) so I've just been using the little packets of Thumler's grit. Anyhow, I had decided to move on to 220# grit. But, once I cleaned everything up I decided to go back to coarse for another couple of weeks. I filled the tumbler up and then added a bunch of small quartz rocks as filler. I may have overloaded the barrel, but the sound is good...I think once the smalls settle in amongst the rough that it'll be good. Anyhow, they've been tumbling again in coarse grit since this past Saturday (01/30/2016). The saga continues...
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Intheswamp
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Member since September 2015
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Post by Intheswamp on Feb 2, 2016 11:22:21 GMT -5
Oh, the reason I thought to update this is that I was searching info about Dreft vs Borax and this thread came up. I got some Dreft, and will only be using it in the Lot-O (not in the rotaries) so I think the barrels will be safe. We'll see...
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