EricD
Cave Dweller
High in the Mountains
Member since November 2019
Posts: 1,142
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Post by EricD on Jan 14, 2020 8:25:26 GMT -5
Just thickened, cold grease and oil I'm sure. I could turn it by hand but it was like stirring cold honey. I doubt that the motor running at about 52 degrees over ambient (normally) would have warmed anything up in a -12 degree room knave , but it may warm it's self. The motor bushings and shaft bearings have never been near any moisture. I oil the motor with Snap-On air tool oil which isn't very viscous. With a slightly larger motor pulley on it (one more tooth) it sometimes (rarely) won't start the barrel turning even in a 70 degree environment. The stock motor on a Thumler A-R12 is not exactly the right motor for the job if you ask me, and I even have it spinning a little slower barrel speed than stock!
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Post by knave on Jan 14, 2020 8:30:00 GMT -5
Check into constant rpm ECM tech EricD. Would be fun to calculate the savings. I believe the Thumler uses a motor similar to the evap fan motors we see. 1/20 or 1/15 hp.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 18, 2020 1:22:25 GMT -5
Week 9: 60/90 SiC. 1268g. Running mass loss 23.4% Alright, I'm calling it on the rough grinding for this thing. It's hit a point of diminishing returns and I'm not equipped for grinding out any fractures that may extend however deep into it. There's a shelf of other pieces to play with so let's get this thing pushed towards polishing, shall we? So a fun fact I suppose, though since I've kept track of the mass it should come as no surprise: This thing has lost 387 grams of mass since it started out in rough grinding. That's 0.85 pounds... the quarter pounder with cheese? more like the triple whopper... in the words of the flex tape guy, that's a lot of damage! (I make no apologies for cleaning barrels and posting while drinking wine)The pile of smaller quartz I've set aside for the next step, and the other pile that just came out of the barrel is kind of freaking me out. There has to be over 1000 other rocks that have helped this thing get to where it is today. I'm thinking the way I'm going with pushing for large tumbles that my rockhounding career may be just finding more quartz to fill the barrels out. What am I going to do with all this? How am I going to keep the (now 2) 12 pound barrels fed every week? Is this what it's like to have children? Ahh!!!
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Post by RocksInNJ on Jan 18, 2020 3:50:07 GMT -5
Sure you’re not from New Jersey. Those piles look like the majority of what’s available to me here. 😂
Thanks for the update and looking forward to the next stages.
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whyofquartz
spending too much on rocks
So, Africa is smaller than I expected...
Member since December 2019
Posts: 316
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Post by whyofquartz on Jan 18, 2020 8:48:44 GMT -5
What am I going to do with all this? How am I going to keep the (now 2) 12 pound barrels fed every week? Is this what it's like to have children? Ahh!!! nah, kids tend to be a lot more trouble especially if you only feed them once a week and don't get me started on the complaining about what the rocks taste like and how they are "swatchy in mah froat" and clean outs are a nightmare.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Jan 25, 2020 3:40:32 GMT -5
Week 10: 120/220 SiC. 1252g. Running mass loss 24.4% Alrighty, this big ugly bastard is on its way I expected the mass loss wouldn't be so much in medium, but it's nice to see that confirmed. That's 1% loss from last week compared to the ~3% from each prior week. Other rocks in the batch are doing okay. Not seeing any chips in the barrel or stones broken, so that's nice. Hopefully it'll stay that way. Suppose it's time for AO 500. Going to load it with sugar and ceramics. Funnily enough this is the first time this 12 lb barrel has seen anything other that coarse grinding since I got it. There's some soap, water, and these little pom things in the barrel scrubbing it nice and clean while it's rolling. Example of what I'm talking about here. Little idea I came up with a while back. They do a pretty good job. Craft Pom Poms
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 1, 2020 1:07:59 GMT -5
Week 11: 500 AO. 1241g. Running mass loss 25.0% (nailed it) Got a little bit of a sheen on it! Eh?! Eh!? I think it's ready to go into polish! Found 1 chipped stone in there, pulled it along with its chiplets. Had a brainwave... Rotary Polishing Vs. Vibe Polishing. Back in the day (a Wednesday by the way) I started loading the prepolish and polish steps with loads of sugar and borderline topping the barrel up with plastic beads. I stopped seeing chipped stones in the polish stage. Then more recently I was thinking about this dry tumbling step where the rocks don't so much tumble as wiggle around. SO! How's this: Rotary is brutal on stones. I've already removed material in coarse and medium. In prepolish I'm trying to smooth out what medium left behind, then with polish take it the rest of the way till smooth. I'm not interested in rocks smashing against each other. That's the whole point of plastics and ceramics right? What do vibes do? They rub, sorta, yea? What if I load my barrel over the suggested 3/4 full for the polishing step with ceramics to limit the motion to sort-of-tumbling-but-mostly-rubbing? I think there's an iota of reason there. I was almost concerned with sugar usage until I realized only 2 weeks out the the whole 12 week process with this rock will need thickened. It's a rare event... (heh... I study rare events) UNO MAS!
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Post by RocksInNJ on Feb 1, 2020 4:26:14 GMT -5
I’m still very much a noob, but it sounds reasonable to me, as long as you don’t fill it to the top and leave some room for movement. Though you’d also most likely be adding more water in the barrel, which may in turn require a little more polish.
Though a vibe doesn’t use very much water at all. Just some wet rocks and maybe a few sprays of water from a spray bottle. I suppose you could try less water and polish like a vibe as well. The only problem with this option is that’s you would have to keep checking the barrels every 6-12 hours to make sure there’s enough water and that things are drying up and getting stuck together.
I’d be interested in the results from either or both options.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 7, 2020 22:15:32 GMT -5
Week 12: AO Polish. 1240g. Running mass loss 25.1% (rounding is for squares) YAY IT'S DONE! I am pretty happy with the shine on it! I held off on posting the video I made last week of prepping the barrel until I knew how the results came out. Thanks for following me along on this journey! Here's to the next!
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Post by RocksInNJ on Feb 7, 2020 23:17:23 GMT -5
Looks great. It was a fun ride and you must have some serious super powers. I’d never be able to manually roll that barrel by hand for a week or more.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 8, 2020 3:14:58 GMT -5
Messing around with MatPlotLib, thought making a plot of the mass loss would be fun/interesting/informative.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Feb 8, 2020 4:57:45 GMT -5
Victory ! Awesome sauce polish Benathema. The graph looks dead accurate too. Telling that the 60/90 step is a world of difference from 220-500-polish. SiC 220-AO 500-AO polish was the recipe I used for years in the rotary. 10 days AO 500, 10 days AO polish. If the batch had a lot of 1/8 and 1/4 pound rocks bumping around and few smalls I ran sugar in the AO 500 step too. *More sugar was added during the heat of summer. By the way Sam's Club has 25 pound bags of sugar for $13.50. Did it take 12 days to complete polish or did you check it say every few days ? I would have thought the big one would have polished in 3-5 days if the ceramics were pre-polished.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 8, 2020 5:42:22 GMT -5
The polish ran 1 week. I didn't peek (busy week). It may have been polished sooner. (hmm, thinking on it, I wonder if I had checked it at the 3 day mark if I could have avoided bruising of the smaller stones... I'll keep that in mind once the tiger's eye gets to the polish stage) Yea, the graph looking like you'd expect is nice to know. Rather than taking it for granted that that's what's happening, in theory, but having actual data to back it up is good. This is the accuracy of a kitchen scale with a resolution of 1 gram... but having to remeasure several times to get a consistent measurement... Error bars be damned, it's a rock I need to keep a closer eye on sugar prices. I try to get a few bags when I see it on sale. I should have either taken pictures or video when I took this out. It was thick, like Ms. Butterworth's syrup viscosity. I was pleased to see that. (not the bruising on the smaller stones though) I'm glad I went through this with a self-collected rock for the first attempt - only real costs being grit, electricity, and time... I dunno, I feel like more is on the line when you pay for a stone by the pound and then grind the crap out of it. This thing lost 0.91 pounds! If that was $10/lb, that's $9.10 obliterated to dust. But... Inspiring none the least for the next large stone.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Feb 8, 2020 6:22:01 GMT -5
Your graph is awesome proof. It reveals how different the coarse grind step is to finishing steps. Goes to show how much attention is given to the last 30 grams of this monster 1655 gram rock. And by far the most work is in the 9 out of 12 weeks to do the shaping. The time intervals are bang on since you used exactly 1 week intervals for the 220-500-polish.
The polish may have been done in as little as 1 to 2 days. A big rock like that totally changes the pressure dynamics. To speed the 500 and polish steps you can save the smalls(ceramics and small quartz) in the polished state and use them over and over ONLY in the 500 and polish steps. Don't be surprised if AO 500 and polish steps only take 2 to 3 days each when using pre-polished/polished smalls with a big rock.
This is a big victory considering the big rock is crystalline quartz and it was start to finish in a rotary. Hat's off !
ETA I have been on this forum a long time. This is about the best tumbling success I have seen.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 8, 2020 7:20:32 GMT -5
ETA I have been on this forum a long time. This is about the best tumbling success I have seen. Wow! Awesome!
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shardy
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since October 2019
Posts: 110
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Post by shardy on Feb 8, 2020 7:39:31 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing and well done. Very interesting.
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Post by mohs on Feb 8, 2020 7:40:49 GMT -5
sweet shine!
enjoyed your barrel shake rattle video roll on !
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EricD
Cave Dweller
High in the Mountains
Member since November 2019
Posts: 1,142
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Post by EricD on Feb 8, 2020 10:13:30 GMT -5
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Post by knave on Feb 8, 2020 11:25:12 GMT -5
I’d like to see it setting on a large flashlight in a dim room.
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Benathema
has rocks in the head
God chased me down and made sure I knew He was real June 20, 2022. I've been on a Divine Mission.
Member since November 2019
Posts: 703
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Post by Benathema on Feb 10, 2020 1:33:56 GMT -5
I’d like to see it setting on a large flashlight in a dim room.
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