doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 19, 2016 18:42:37 GMT -5
How does the 10 inch HF tile saw for $215 compare to 10 inch lapidary saws, which run around $1000? What are you getting for all that extra money?
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 14, 2016 19:32:17 GMT -5
I'm going to offer a different opinion - dyed - just because brown is one of the colors that Brazilian material gets routinely dyed to up the contrast in the banding of an otherwise fairly drab gray agate. That certainly is an attractive pair, dyed or not, and not garish at all. Brazilian dyers (as with their German mentors) do a very good job of selecting stones that will dye well. The stone must have banding of varying porosity so that some bands take up color, while others do not. Some of the Brazilian geode material contains layers that allow dye penetration much farther into the stone than most I've seen. In the bookend geodes that I've seen, few have matrix/rind where the dye penetrates (I'm thinking just a brush with cutting oil keeps the dye from taking). I've even seen some where more than one color dye has been used, including this one, which was dyed an obviously artificial blue and green (not shown in the photo) with no spreading of the dye into the matrix. I think it would be fascinating to visit one of these outfits to watch what goes on - I have a hard time imagining the techniques are used for the multi-color pieces - I expect it involves some sort of resist coating to block certain areas, but it would still require a good grasp of the particular material to prevent bleeding/mixing. Thanks for your opinion. Do you think its dyed because you think the dark brown color is unnatural looking? Are there any other factors that look suspicious to you?
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 14, 2016 19:23:50 GMT -5
After looking at these pics I'm putting a bunch of my tumbles back into stage one.
How do you get lagunas so smooth? Mine come in such irregular shapes!
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 14, 2016 13:18:23 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies. I'm glad others feel they are natural as well. Always wonder with these bookends..
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 13, 2016 14:12:12 GMT -5
I've seen some dye jobs where the bands absorb the dye differently, thus retaining some of the distinct banding, but the coloring does tend to spill over to everything in a somewhat inconsistent manner. In this case, the browns are consistently brown throughout, and whites are bright white with no hint of brown, and the quartz also does not have a hint of brown.
Also, I've seen some dark brown color naturally occurring in Brazilian agate before, although not to this extent.
I do have limited experience, and this could just be a much better dye job than what I've seen before,
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Aug 13, 2016 11:50:33 GMT -5
www.ebay.com/itm/121870882389?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2648&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AITRecently bought this pair of neat looking dark brown agate bookends. I don't think they are dyed, because of the distinct color between the bands, especially the brown and white bands, along with the quartz, which didn't have any brown coloring. But I'm still a novice at determining this sort of thing. Wondering what others think? I assume these are Brazilian agate but not 100% on that either.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Jul 20, 2016 19:42:31 GMT -5
QuailRiver: Thanks for the info. I'm in eastern PA, so unfortunately a still a bit far from that show you mentioned, but I'll keep it in mind if I'm ever in the area around that time. I've bought some Agua Nueva rough on EBay for $10 a pound, but seems like mixed quality material. Looks like thegemshop sells Agua for $6 to $25 a pound, but no idea of the quality since I've never bought or been to the store. I've also bought a bunch of rough Condor or Laguna on Ebay for around $15 a pound on average.
Wonder if Ebay is a decent place to get a fair deal (if you wait around), and whether these prices seem fair to people? Or whether shows or dealers can offer better prices or selection?
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Jul 12, 2016 9:58:57 GMT -5
Really wanted to go to the show but its quite far from me. I was wondering if anyone could share the market rate for rough, uncut, laguna or condor agate? I'm on the east coast and new to the hobby. Doesn't seem like there's anywhere to buy rough rock near me, although I've been buying a lot on Ebay.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Jun 5, 2016 10:44:29 GMT -5
Thanks for the advise. Makes sense. Too bad I'll have to stash some of this agate away until I have the equipment to polish them..
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on May 27, 2016 14:22:51 GMT -5
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Mar 13, 2016 10:30:05 GMT -5
Broke off some cheap mixed rock I got off of Ebay to create some smalls. For some reason, this jasper I broke with a hammer was literally 10 times easier to break than a Brazilian I had been trying to break before. Not sure if that rock was just inherently much more brittle, or maybe it had already been crushed and had more internal weaknesses.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Mar 12, 2016 21:10:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I guess the coarse grit basically becomes a finer grit after a week? So it still has some shaping power but much more limited than new coarse. I generally just dump the new coarse in the existing slurry thinking that maybe there's some fine grit in the slurry that's still doing some work.
I figure with the price of grit being fairly cheap if you buy in bulk, I would just add a full amount of grit each week while reusing existing slurry. If it produces a faster shaping process, you end up saving money on electricity, and wear and tear on your barrels. No idea how much time I'm saving tho by putting in all that grit each week vs being conservative with the grit additions, which some people seem to prefer.
I also ended up using the extra coarse 30 grit, thinking maybe it would be faster, but with limited experience, I'm not sure what difference it makes.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Mar 12, 2016 9:44:10 GMT -5
Doesn't the grit break down pretty quickly and become less effective after a while? Can you really use the same coarse grit for a month (without it slowing down the shaping process a lot) I've been adding new coarse grit every week at 1tbsp per pound of rock.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Mar 10, 2016 9:03:16 GMT -5
Ah, thanks for the responses. I think I've read somewhere that 20% of the material in stage one should be smalls? I felt my results have been pretty good without using that many, but I'll have to try using more.
|
|
doublet83
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since March 2016
Posts: 118
|
Post by doublet83 on Mar 9, 2016 16:06:25 GMT -5
Hi, new to the forums but I have been searching and reading up on tumbling for the past few months.
I am wondering how necessary it is to use a decent amount of small material in the coarse grit stage? The material I have purchased online typically consistent of 1 to 1.5 inch stones. Am I just prolonging the stage 1 tumbling process by not using enough small material? Or is it that without the small material the tumbling process has a harder time smoothing out the nooks and crannies of the stones?
|
|