Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 16, 2017 9:32:01 GMT -5
I have been telling a business friend about rock polishing and he has seen my small tumbler in action. Yesterday he came over with his girlfriend with 2 bags of rocks that he said they discovered and dug up while walking on a mountain trail near Athens Georgia. On closer inspection it was one rock in each bag and they looked perfect for tumbling. I was stunned that he could be bringing me such great rock to stuff into my tumblers. Plus these are about 8 pounds each and they carried them a long distance for me. There is plenty to breakup and tumble together. I am making a very uneducated guess that it is some white and yellow quartz. I'll get this started as soon as the rock from my landslide trip gets out of course stage. I guess I need a chisel to break it up with.
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Post by captbob on Feb 16, 2017 10:31:26 GMT -5
I was stunned that he could be bringing me such great rock to stuff into my tumblers. That's a pretty good friend that would haul 16 pounds of rocks back from a hike for you. Good luck with them and keep us updated on how they tumble for ya.
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Fossilman
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Member since January 2009
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Post by Fossilman on Feb 16, 2017 12:04:57 GMT -5
Will be watching this with interest too!!!!! Nice friends by the way!!
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 16, 2017 17:39:53 GMT -5
Now . . . If they find Quartz, Isn't Gold nearby
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 17, 2017 12:58:56 GMT -5
Hmmmm . . . I looked up Quartz today and Wikipedia says . . . Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. Its crystal structure is a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical formula of SiO2. Is this saying that Quartz is Silicon Oxide ? it also talks about piezoelectric properties, am I going to get an electric shock if I try to break it up ?
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Post by Pat on Feb 17, 2017 13:06:06 GMT -5
Yes, quartz is SiO2: silicon dioxide.
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osuguy0301
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2015
Posts: 203
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Post by osuguy0301 on Feb 18, 2017 9:11:52 GMT -5
Hmmmm . . . I looked up Quartz today and Wikipedia says . . . Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. Its crystal structure is a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical formula of SiO2. Is this saying that Quartz is Silicon Oxide ? it also talks about piezoelectric properties, am I going to get an electric shock if I try to break it up ? Quartz is used as an oscillator in electronics to keep a precise frequency or in watches to help keep a precise time. You won't get shocked by it. Jake
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 18, 2017 9:49:13 GMT -5
Here are a couple of snipits that explain that it can be thousands of volts. I have been shocked by breaking a piezo tweeter element by hand. This big of a chunk of quartz could be a scary high voltage. For my own mental safety I will be wrapping these in Aluminum Foil when I break them up. Plus wrap the chisel in electric tape.
----------------------------- Direct piezoelectricity of some substances, like quartz, can generate potential differences of thousands of volts. The best-known application is the electric cigarette lighter: pressing the button causes a spring-loaded hammer to hit a piezoelectric crystal, producing a sufficiently high-voltage electric current that flows across a small spark gap, thus heating and igniting the gas.
If we put the crystal under mechanical stress, all tetrahedra are effected, with their central silicon atom pushed downwards. All SiO4 units are polarized in the same way, in this case being more negative on the top and more positive on the bottom. The voltage built up in each SiO4 unit is very small, but since millions of them line up in the crystal structure, their voltage adds up to a measurable amount. This is very similar to lining up batteries in a torch. In fact, one can measure several thousand volts on the crystal surface. -----------------------------
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osuguy0301
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since December 2015
Posts: 203
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Post by osuguy0301 on Feb 18, 2017 10:42:52 GMT -5
I have busted quartz with a hammer before and never had any issues but I wasn't breaking anything the size of what you have tho.
Jake
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Post by glennz01 on Feb 18, 2017 12:47:30 GMT -5
i wouldn't worry about it.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 19, 2017 1:55:33 GMT -5
I know about Quartz. Will be taking precautions since it has burned me once. High Voltage will not kill you in spikes, but but it is very unpleasant.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Feb 19, 2017 2:30:46 GMT -5
Alternatively . . . I am planning to send Audio voltages to these Quartz rocks to see if they will produce audio for me.
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Post by toiv0 on Feb 19, 2017 5:41:29 GMT -5
A native friend of mine asked me to pick up small round white quartz for him. He made rattles out of rawhide and when you shook them at night they would spark and light up inside the rattle. They were smaller than pea size.
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Wooferhound
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Lortone QT66 and 3A
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Post by Wooferhound on Mar 19, 2017 17:45:10 GMT -5
I am finally getting around to starting this Quartz rolling in stage one. I bought a large chisel and used an axe as a hammer to breakup these 8 & 10 pound chunks. WOW this stuff was hard, beat my hands up quite a bit getting this stuff broken down. The picture is the aftermath and shows the leftover quartz for next weeks tumble. I gave the stuff a cleaning tumble for an hour in mild soap and it looked fantastic while still rough and wet. I cant wait to get these rounded enough to see what they will become.
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Mar 19, 2017 19:58:34 GMT -5
This quartz is also from a gold producing region of Georgia so I am inspecting the settlement tank carefully.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2017 21:01:48 GMT -5
Imagine that.
Man breaking quartz rocks for his child's rock tumbler is accidentally electrocuted. News at 11.
Wow
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on Mar 20, 2017 17:25:22 GMT -5
Here I am Hammering the quartz into small chunks . . .
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Wooferhound
Cave Dweller
Lortone QT66 and 3A
Member since December 2016
Posts: 1,422
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Post by Wooferhound on May 8, 2017 14:54:29 GMT -5
I have been rolling this Quartz in Course stage for a few months now. I finally decided to push some of it through to the polish stage along with some other rocks. It ended up coming out real good with quite the shine that isn't obvious in this photograph. This is just the beginning, 3 days ago I started almost 12 pounds moving forward to polish so there will be plenty more to see.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on May 8, 2017 17:11:44 GMT -5
Harness the electricity to run the tumbler. The Tesla Tumbler
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Post by coloradocliff on May 9, 2017 20:13:03 GMT -5
I know about Quartz. Will be taking precautions since it has burned me once. High Voltage will not kill you in spikes, but but it is very unpleasant. It melts your screw driver too...grin
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