surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 25, 2018 2:17:42 GMT -5
Wanted to start a thread for when I actually manage to get pictures, which is almost never, and to collect some random observations about working with beach finds. Since starting with beach finds is common advice to give to newbies (like myself), there's some hurdles and fussy aspects to it that I'd like to drop in here as well. (I'd be doing these new or old, since I love my vast collection of leaverite regardless.) This is the 'graduates' from 120/220, ready to go on to 500; this is from two cleanouts, and I was admittedly just too dang lazy to bring the batch from the day before back downstairs after I'd sifted through them. I normally have two batches 'at the ready' to alternate between for 120/220, because so many of these stones are quite small and wow do a lot of small stones fit in a UV-18 batch! It takes a few hours to check out a batch, so I like to have the alternate running already while I putter through between other work throughout the day without rushing. The graduates collect in plastic shoeboxes for now, in water; ideally until there's enough for a full batch in the next run, though for now I'm waiting to order more barrels for the UV-18 first -- one for AO 500/1000, one for polish -- and so there are a few batches worth stored up by now that will be separated out by content a little more than what's shown below. I'm battering the dickens out of the current barrel with SiC 120/220 every day for 1 or 2 day runs. (Hey, sometimes it rains!) As of now, we only collect at one location: Sunset Beach (and surrounding areas) in Cape May, NJ. (I have an album of images from the location, which is pretty neat, here.) This is a pretty good sample of what we find, over all, save for the things that don't go into the tumbler. (Pics of that may come later!) Everything below shown wet, some things with vugs or other 'it stays' pits need to be separated out for hardcore scrubbing still. Cork paper was the best bet thus far for background, since it takes being wetted like a champ and anything white was blowing out the colors with my 'too lazy to get out the camera rig or set up proper lighting so I'm using the phone and an LED lamp' approach. We have no clue what most of this actually is, barring 'lots and lots of quartz' in most cases. Some colorful conglomerates: 'The Blue Stuff', comes in light and dark variations: Fossil Bits: Maybe chalcedony? All of these have that waxy quality to them: A mix of hands thrown up in the air with a giant question mark, probably mostly quartz/jasper/chert/flint of some kind; some have fossil inclusions: Lots of quartz, which is everywhere there. Some have nice inclusions, some may be something else or may be on the chalcedony fence: (These are the 'Cape May Diamonds' the site is known for, a little larger than the average size found everywhere there.) (These are tiny; they're essentially grit carriers. Many are also Cape May Diamonds, in the average size range found there everywhere you look, which probably makes all the tourists who ask me how to find them or what they are want to murder me.) While there's not a lot there that's exciting, there's some that are fairly neat to me, at least. It's a good representative sample of what's on site. Any help with ID or narrowing down what things may be would be helpful, for sure!
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Post by fernwood on Jul 25, 2018 2:46:31 GMT -5
Thanks for the show. I really like the black/orangish ones.
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 25, 2018 3:11:40 GMT -5
I adore those, and there are lots of them. They've shown up consistently through the years, and I really wish I knew what they are.
A lot of them have fossil bits in them, and somewhere in the 'back into 120/220' batch is a piece of either fossil coral or sponge that's partially replaced by that orange and navy combo. (Some of them, they get translucent bands of lime green and ivory. When you posted about the fiestaware colors a ways back, it made me think of those a lot.)
I half remember some of the ones in that 'no clue' section (mostly the beiges and browns) that would get really stubborn about taking a polish ever, but most things (unless glaringly obvious it's some completely different thing) end up running together until the 120/220 to make sure all their 'rind' is off. Until they've been tumbled a bit, it's almost impossible to tell what's going to be underneath for a lot of the mystery ones. The ones with the bright orange and the beige ones look identical until they've been in the tumbler a lot of the time, unless we luck out and there's a crack or broken end to give us a guess. A few of the orange ones are pretty big for what we find, but they're buried in the batches running currently. (One will likely live in the rotary for the better part of the year at this point if I had to guess, but it's about the size of my dinky short girl fist and has a lot of rindy matrix; I am really dying to know what it looks like under all of that.)
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Post by fernwood on Jul 25, 2018 4:01:42 GMT -5
They sort of look like the black chert I find.
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Post by fantastic5 on Jul 25, 2018 7:44:58 GMT -5
You've got some really neat local material. I'm a huge fan of fossils and I really love the variation and shine you got on those! Sorry I can't be a help with ID however.
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Post by vegasjames on Jul 25, 2018 8:21:12 GMT -5
Nice collection. Love those blue ones. Also the green one on the left in pic 12 and the wavy one center top pic 16.
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 25, 2018 9:07:28 GMT -5
"The Blue Stuff" is one of the things we're always happy to find. It's not as plentiful as, say, the endless quartz (heavens help us), but there's a cool range of shades and colors in it. Some of the ones in the rotary now are a brighter aqua color, for instance. They all have that milky look, though. This is technically 'The Blue Rocks' state, but I found these on the other side of the river in New Jersey, and the actual 'blue rocks' are more like slate any time I've seen them.
The one sad thing about a lot of them is that the colors fade significantly when dry, even after polishing. I'm trying to get pictures of the one batch that I managed to finish back in 2012 that shows that through the day.
I love the variety at this beach, though. There's not a lot that's super flashy, but there are some pretty neat things, so it's not hard to fill a 2.5 gallon bucket (at least) on a trip at all.
There's more that we find that will never end up in the tumbler, since apparently, the 'town' extended further out into what is now Delaware Bay/The Atlantic (depending on which side of that jetty you're standing on, more or less). We find a lot of water worn concrete, coal, slag of... heavens only knows, the rare bits of glass slag, sea glass, brick, etc. (The running joke with that is that we're tumbling the natural materials, and collecting the naturally water-tumbled man-made materials.) In the pile awaiting a good cleaning is a slab of water-worn slab of rusty metal that has the beginnings of coral starting to grow on it, for instance. While a lot of these things could go into a tumbler batch on their own, we kinda like the 'opposites day' factor going on there.
We headed out there a week ago, and I planned to get pictures, since the tides were good -- but naturally, the beach was nearly bare compared to its usual state, mostly because it's summer. (Still came back with a full 2.5g bucket... ) We're heading back out on Friday in hopes that the storms that have been pounding the area may have washed something interesting in along the way, or washed out some of the sand for a few days. The best hunting along the Atlantic beaches is always fall through spring, not because of the crowds, but because sand migrates away from fall through winter, and starts coming back in in the spring. We try to head out there about one every month or two, but this year is two weeks of daily (and sometimes twice daily) beachcombing for shells in Florida, so we're considering more frequent visits to the local(ish) beach until then to get back in the habit of hauling buckets on sand. (Cue the training montage!)
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Post by MsAli on Jul 25, 2018 9:56:10 GMT -5
Those are great! Really nice variety and colors. That blue/black and white banded one is amazing
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quartz
Cave Dweller
breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
Posts: 3,341
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Post by quartz on Jul 25, 2018 23:50:13 GMT -5
That's a nice collection of stuff, lots of variety to keep the day interesting. Wish we could get a bucket full every time out on our part of the Left Coast. One suggestion, you wrote of big and little rocks, pretty meaningless w/o a coin or something to get a size comparison.
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ontherocks
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since May 2017
Posts: 76
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Post by ontherocks on Jul 26, 2018 20:41:49 GMT -5
I loved all of these. There is so much variety! I would tumble that all day long.
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 26, 2018 22:07:06 GMT -5
We're heading out there tomorrow morning, so hopefully I'll be able to get some clear and current images of the site. I won't bother unless it's a little less 'look at all the wet, bare sand!', but there are some spots that reliably, almost every time, have something there. Definitely a place to go while out this way! A lot of the stuff there washes the larger pieces up to the high tide line, so as long as you're not at high tide itself, you don't especially need to aim for the lowest low. More from today: flic.kr/s/aHsmpEZgjr
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 27, 2018 0:35:54 GMT -5
You are finding some really nice stuff on the beach in Maryland. Those should shine up real fine!
I especially like the fossils. We find a lot of the same marine fossils in the Colorado desert of So Cal. Fossils are so cool!
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 27, 2018 8:41:33 GMT -5
The fossils are my prime 'to hunt for' at this point. I literally need never pick up another piece of quartz again (in part thanks to the husband, who will never stop doing it). Every so often there's a cool one with wild colors or a rutile piece, but otherwise I look for fossils and 'weird for here'.
This one is actually right at the very southernmost tip of New Jersey. It's right where the Atlantic meets Delaware Bay, and the bay is at the end of the Delaware River, which goes much further north. Supposedly, a lot of the variety comes from the Catskills and similar, making its way down over... forever, from what I gather. So there's a little stuff that probably has managed to wind its way down from the more glacial variety up that way from the river, and the ocean just turns the whole thing into a melting pot.
What kills me is that a number of landscaping supply places in the area supposedly dredge the river for some of their stones; the temptation to ask to visit with a bucket is enormous.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,685
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Post by Fossilman on Jul 27, 2018 8:43:59 GMT -5
Pretty nice combination of material in that collection....
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Jul 27, 2018 19:38:15 GMT -5
Well, no pictures of the beach today, between 'dang, it's hot' and the crowds. We have again learned our 'never go on a Friday in summer' lesson, for sure. We apparently need reminding every few years. The husband found today's winner, I think, though I still need to bleach my small bucketful and see what's there -- it was a grab anything with cool color or texture of a sane size sort of day. Probably about a gallon's worth; not a grand haul, but it wasn't for lack of material, just crowd and heat colliding to make it less pleasant to be out there. I can't wait to see what this weird little potato he found does in the tumbler: (Please ignore the 'prop up the rock' shell!)
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rockcat11
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since August 2017
Posts: 176
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Post by rockcat11 on Aug 5, 2018 16:03:03 GMT -5
Wow I love ❤️ the rocks. Wish I has stuff like that around here! I mostly have brown quartz.
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old hound
starting to shine!
Member since August 2018
Posts: 36
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Post by old hound on Aug 5, 2018 22:15:14 GMT -5
Great variety, I must pick up the quarts also , great job on those.
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surreality
starting to spend too much on rocks
is picking up too many rocks at the beach again
Member since January 2012
Posts: 217
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Post by surreality on Aug 21, 2018 2:19:03 GMT -5
shoeboxes by Dee F., on Flickr Not the greatest pic, but sums up the current state of how this big ol' mass project is going. Been sick as a dog for about two weeks, and finally getting over it. Everything ran much, much longer than I had wanted it to last week, which was just fine and dandy for the rotary, but the UV-18 batch was less than pleased with me for it. (It got its checkups and spritzing, but I could barely pick up a coffee cup, let alone an 18lb barrel of rocks, so it kept running for about 6 days in 120/220, as my husband was out of town, having lost his grandmother around the time time I got sick. ) A lot of 'nearly there!' got nicked up enough -- or revealed new and interesting pits, jags, and holes, of which all but the quartz seems to have in abundance -- to almost all pile right back in there to keep running tomorrow. Some of them even got kicked back to the rotary, poor wee rocks! But there is a silver lining! Tomorrow, the new barrel for the UV-18 (normal polish), and one for the old (hopefully restored well enough to not explode, or trip the circuit breaker since too much is running at once) UV-10 (500 and 1000 AO) should be arriving. (All the love to Shawn at the Rock Shed!) I know me and cleaning, and this material is... well, calling it a mixed bag would be an understatement. Next month, ideally there will be two more bowls -- one to handle 500/1000 AO in the 18, and a 'special polish tricks reqiured' for the 10, since we almost never find anything big enough in the 'fossils and delicates' category to overwhelm the 10 that would require them. (I admit it, I'm cheap -- 10lbs of the 2mm ceramics for this is way less painful than 20lbs and made this call for me, even if their prices on these are downright amazing.) At the moment, I'm just elated that I'll finally be able to get some of these little buggers past the 'done with 120/220 SiC' stage; I'm up to two and a half soggy plastic shoeboxes full at this point! So, through the wee hours, I'm sorting through the rocks that have been collecting at that stage on the most basic level: 'quartz' and 'absolutely everything else'. This is definitely the most boring way to go -- the quartz going in first -- but it's proven the least fussy thus far, finishes up faster than anything else in the prior stages, and is more likely to go through without too many reruns required along the way. Plus, for some reason, it remains the husband's favorite, and the pure white opaque ones are my mother's favorite; she's getting a little box of those for Xmas, and there aren't too many of them, so I may as well start gathering them now. Also, the quartz will just need a second pass over the lot of it to cull out the 'I think this might be chalcedony' milky ones, which are a little more delicate. The 'everything else'... well, I guess I should just be glad that those plastic shoeboxes from Target are cheap? (I really do recommend the 'clearview latch' ones with the purple handles if you can find them locally; we use them for a lot of wet rock storage and they stack, hold up to surprising amounts of weight, and survive the slogging around the house like champs. We use them for travel, for the shells, etc. The shoebox and boot box sizes are pure gold; we could build walls out of them by now we use them so much.) The idea that there may be some of these guys done -- even if it is just a boring ol' batch of quartz -- potentially around this time next week is the best news around here in a while!
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Post by miket on Aug 21, 2018 9:19:12 GMT -5
All very nice, thanks for sharing! I love getting on here and seeing the amazing variety of things people find and/or are working with. Nature sure does some beautiful things to look at.
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goatgrinder
spending too much on rocks
Make mine a man cave
Member since January 2017
Posts: 368
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Post by goatgrinder on Aug 21, 2018 18:03:56 GMT -5
Oh Dang! Color me jealous of your location and fabulous beach finds. I looked at each frame and loved all of it. Thanks so much for sharing with us.
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