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Post by Starguy on Mar 27, 2024 12:36:48 GMT -5
As always, love your tumbles. I also have some cool Swazi tumbles with tube inclusions. Thanks. Their tubes are cool. I’m looking forward to sawing more Swazis this summer. It seems like the lighter color material has the tubes. Very nice! I love the ones with eyes/orbs/blobs! Thanks. I like the eyes and orbs too. That last Bot on my fingertip has a lot going on. Outstanding every last one, I keep looking for duds none in my book. Love the agates. Your system of tumbling really works. How long was this batch in 1st. Stage ? The shaping is amazing. Thx for sharing Thanks. I run two 12 lb tumblers with coarse only. During weekly cleanouts, I pick out the rocks that are ready for polish. When I have enough for a stage two barrel, they run together until polished. That process catches a lot of duds early. Yeah I second the Tripoli. I've been using it as a pre-polish lately too. And, I actually use it to polish quartz - just have to let it run 5-6 days in the vibe. Powdered Tripoli is getting hard to find. I’ve had some for years but ran out finishing this batch. I didn't mention that your photos are very good. Thanks. I’m slowly learning what works. I got warned by Cloudinary about exceeding my quota last month. Some beautiful stuff there. Love the agates. The pet palm looks likes it's woven from wicker. Thanks Gary. I’m not sure where the palm wood is from. My former boss found a big piece at a yard sale. I sawed 12+ slabs from it. She gave me two slabs and a heel for the effort. Brent, your tumble batches are always amazing. This batch is even more yummy than usual! Thank you Robin. I’ve been lucky enough to acquire some nice agates over the years. Tumbling rocks is a very soothing hobby for me.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 27, 2024 11:28:32 GMT -5
It was great meeting you too. I thought it was a good rock show. It wasn’t very crowded on Friday. I didn’t end up buying much but I made a couple trades. I haven’t been to the Spokane show for a couple years. It was much better than the Coeur d’Alene show.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 26, 2024 16:09:41 GMT -5
I'd cut it up and incorporate it into other pieces There you go thinking outside the box. What a great idea.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 26, 2024 13:28:20 GMT -5
Those Swazi look amazing - love the subtle colors! I’m really starting to like Swazi agates. There’s a lot of variety in the patterns and colors plus they can have some cool tubes. I’ve got a fair-sized bucket of them but they need to be sawed. I also like that they break pretty easily along existing cracks. Way to go my friend!! This picture is SICK!! Thanks Jason. You would think tumbling the same type of agates would get boring. Bots continue to amaze me. There’s always something you haven’t seen before. They produce lots or parallax shadows too. They all look great!! The flint is so interesting with the swirling patterns. I don't think I've seen that in anything I've tumbled yet. There's bands for days in the big picture. All superb!! Thanks for sharing! Thanks Peta. The flint takes an amazing polish. The gray areas in the photo look blue to my eye. Thanks for sending that material. I have quite a bit more still in coarse plus a few pieces I want to saw. Wow, what a great batch! The colors of the SSM (Swali, Swazi, and Mozambique) agates are quite soft and nice, but the Alimajo agates are stunning. I recognized the Flint Ridge right away. Thanks for sharing. Thank you. I like the SSM acronym. The Alimajos have been fun but a little disappointing as well. They were quite expensive but there weren’t a lot of good ones in what I received. I sawed some and tumbled others whole. Thanks. Tumbling is fun. That is a stunning batch! Thanks for sharing! Thank you. The polish turned out a little better than average. I used Tripoli between 500 grit and polish. That took an extra 6 days but they were almost polished going to the tin oxide. After polish, I did an hour in soapy water then a full day burnish in water.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 25, 2024 20:29:37 GMT -5
I opened a three pounder yesterday but felt it needed to burnish longer. It’s the third barrel for 2024. It looked better this morning. Here are a few photos. The towel shot. Swali, Swazi, Mozambique agate. Alimajo agates Bruneau, Montana and a hunk of petrified palm wood. My favorites. The one at about 2:00 is Ohio flint from rocknewb101 . It has tons of color and took a great polish. The rest are Bots. Bots are amazing. thanks for looking.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 25, 2024 11:28:51 GMT -5
It has some nice engraving. It’s probably worth more to someone than just bullion value. The hard part is to find somebody to pay more. It’s a cool piece.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 24, 2024 14:34:29 GMT -5
Nice looking batch. There are a lot of colors in the flint. Your shaping and polish are really well done. Thanks for sharing your work.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 24, 2024 12:46:28 GMT -5
Great looking batch! It looks like a lot of rocks too. How big is your tumbler?
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Post by Starguy on Mar 24, 2024 11:05:55 GMT -5
Man, you knocked those out of the park. Very impressive.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 21, 2024 19:27:58 GMT -5
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Post by Starguy on Mar 20, 2024 14:31:59 GMT -5
The best time to buy rocks is when you see them. They’re rarely still available when you go back.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 20, 2024 12:19:18 GMT -5
Nice slabs roy . When is the Spokane show? I live about an hour away. starts this Friday Will you have a booth?
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Post by Starguy on Mar 20, 2024 12:10:02 GMT -5
Looking good, thanks for sharing! Don't leave them in there for too long or you might get some gas buildup leading to a blowout! Yeah. It’s not much of a fiber supplement anymore.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 19, 2024 19:21:34 GMT -5
It’s been a month or so since the last update. The load is looking pretty mature but it doesn’t produce a lot each cleanout. Maybe a hand full a week. First half. Second half. Filler. A few cool ones. These are what are heading to stage 2, all Lakers. An almost full Metamucil container. Thanks for looking.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 19, 2024 18:44:20 GMT -5
Neat. You can work on your washout from the toilet.
The crystals are cool. My guess is that the dehumidifier is causing something to be supersaturated in the solution. It’s probably the borax.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 19, 2024 17:29:35 GMT -5
orneryboiI’ve never slabbed any but I have a few slabs. Blue Biggs and Deschuttes.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 17, 2024 13:21:00 GMT -5
What a cool photo.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 17, 2024 13:19:11 GMT -5
Glass and obsidian are not crystalline like most rocks. Glass is considered a viscous fluid. My theory is that there are tiny pressurized bubbles in glass and obsidian which release their pressure as they are exposed during tumbling. Tumbler barrels aren’t designed to hold any pressure so “POP”.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 16, 2024 23:16:19 GMT -5
I have a Covington 16” combination saw. It’s pretty light duty but it has sawed a lot of slabs. If you can afford an 18” saw, it will be considerably heavier duty. An 18 will have a bigger foot print and be a lot more expensive. It has auto-feed and shutoff.
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Post by Starguy on Mar 16, 2024 12:25:50 GMT -5
Nice slabs roy. When is the Spokane show? I live about an hour away.
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