richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Jan 2, 2017 12:53:48 GMT -5
I’ve been playing around with the camera a little more in better lighting and believe I have made some progress though the images are still coming out a bit darker than I intend. More playing needed! I ran a few rocks for a few extra days in the polish stage and took them out last night. I don’t think I can see any difference between the shine on them and those that I took out a couple of days ago. Here are the last ones from this batch: These are a couple of Lake Superior Agates. The bigger one had a couple of cracks that I just couldn’t get rid of. And here are a few individual close ups. This first one is one I picked up around George West, TX. One side shined up really nicely and the other was just full of pits. No matter how much I ground it the pits didn’t go away. This seems to be similar to what happens to 90+% of the rocks I have tried to tumble so far. Here’s the red-and metallic jasper piece. As I said earlier this one came in a mixed bag from India. You can also see that it has some pits on the left side. I couldn’t seem to get it perfectly smooth. Here is a piece of San Jacinto pet wood. This one is pretty representative of what I have been able to do with pet wood so far. I can get it pretty shiny but there are always little imperfections in the surface, no matter how much I tumble it. Any tips for a better finish? This is the piece that I liked the most; again, lots of pits in it so I never could get a perfectly smooth surface on it. The interesting thing about this one to me is that when I hold it in my hand the brown areas actually look olive green to me and in the photos they look brown. Not sure what is going on with that. Here’s another San Jacinto pet wood piece. This probably has the best finish of any that I have tumbled so far. It is a pretty small piece though. This is a piece of chert(?) that I picked up along the Rio Grande. I thought it came out pretty neat looking and is probably the most solid rock I have gotten so far. I don’t believe there are any pits or other noticeable imperfections in the surface. This one is a Bajia Agate that someone gave me.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Jan 2, 2017 10:34:18 GMT -5
Nobody but me was interested in it around here until I had a bowl of shiny rocks. They were interested in taking some of the rocks home but when I tried to show them the tumbler I got a, "maybe later" response.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Jan 1, 2017 20:23:55 GMT -5
The All White background is causing your autoexposure to compensate for all that whitespace. If you have a "backlight" setting you should turn it on for those backgrounds. Your camera is adjusting the brightness of the Flash but is compensating by adjusting the exposure. That is what I thought as well but I switched to manual exposure so unless I am misunderstanding how manual exposure works (and there is a good chance I do have a misunderstanding) I should overcome the white background problem. Shouldn't the exposure compensation cope with it? Anyway, I will be trying with a gray card and exposure lock to see if that does any better.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Jan 1, 2017 19:05:26 GMT -5
I did have to brighten them on the computer to get them the way they look here. The ambient light was pretty minimal so pretty much all of the light came from the flash.
I am using a rebel camera so it isn't terribly sophisticated. I used an adapter that is plugged into the hot shoe to control the flash which is on a second tripod to the side of the camera.
At first the pictures looked dark so I adjusted the flash exposure compensation. First +1 then +2 but there was no obvious change in the brightness of the photo. I guessed that the flash was just not powerful enough for the camera settings and lightning so I opened the aperture and used a longer exposure time and eventually that made things brighter but I am wondering if the automatic metering was throwing things off somehow.
I need to play around with it when it isn't so dark and also read the manual.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Jan 1, 2017 0:41:26 GMT -5
Yes, my mom found it quite amusing that I was so happy to receive a "box of rocks" for Christmas.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 7:48:43 GMT -5
Looks pretty interesting. Wish it wasn't slotted, I haven't had the greatest luck with slotted blades for grinding with my tile saw. Still should work though.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 7:41:55 GMT -5
Nice set! I think the local rocks are awesome!
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 0:09:54 GMT -5
I love that bottom middle rock in the second picture, the red and gray one. Great batch, and I think the pictures look great. Thanks! I am pretty sure that came from a bag of mixed rough from India.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 0:07:45 GMT -5
All I can say is that your first batch absolutely blows away my first batch! Great work!!!
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 0:04:49 GMT -5
Another Christmas Gift was two pounds of “Beginners Mix” of rough from Rocktumbler.com. I hope this material will be easier than much of what I have been working with so far. My plan is to photograph this material as it goes through the various stages. The material has a variety of different sized rocks and for the most part appears to be pretty rough. There were two fairly large pieces that appeared to have already been in the coarse stage of a tumbler for a while. I can’t identify most of the rock in the box (this material was nicely packaged) but there were several larger pieces of “Yellow Feather Jasper” that look pretty cool. Anyway, it was an excuse to play around with the flash some more. Here’s the entire contents of the box: And here are some close ups of some of the larger pieces:
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 31, 2016 0:02:05 GMT -5
Thanks wigglinrocks! I forgot to add this shot to the bunch:
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 30, 2016 23:50:15 GMT -5
This afternoon I pulled my latest batch of rocks out of the tumbler and they seemed shiny enough for me to call them done. I have been having some challenges with what I assume is bruising so I was running mostly ceramic media and only a few rocks. This seems to have mostly solved the bruising problem. By the time I have this much invested in my rocks I get a little paranoid about messing them up. For Christmas I got an external flash and a soft box and this was my first opportunity to really try them out. I’m still figuring out how to get the exposure the way I want it right out of the camera. I am having trouble getting the photos bright enough. I tried adjusting the flash exposure compensation but for some reason it seems to have no effect. I think the flash isn’t powerful enough to get the amount of illumination I need. Anyway, here’s the group shot: In this group there is a piece of San Jacinto pet wood and to the right of it another rock from the San Jacinto. I don’t know what it is but thought it was really neat looking. In this shot are three rocks that I picked up near Zapata, TX on a bird watching outing. The red one is carnelian I believe. The bottom left rock is one I found in the San Jacinto, I think it is a piece of pet wood. The plum colored rock on the bottom right is another from the San Jacinto (jasper?). The top right is another rock from the Rio Grande near Zapata, TX. The lower middle rock is a piece of “sea jasper” I bought on ebay. I’m not sure what the top two rocks are or where they came from but I believe they are the same material. Maybe they came from Garagerocker? Thanks for looking!
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 29, 2016 22:23:32 GMT -5
Those came out great. I have so much to learn.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 29, 2016 9:48:39 GMT -5
Thanks very much for the feedback. I'll put it on my wish list.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 29, 2016 1:54:20 GMT -5
I decided that I wanted to torture myself a little and started looking through the rough for sale over at The Rock Shed and the Turritella Agate caught my eye.
Has anyone tried tumbling this material? If so how difficult is it to get shiny? I had some fossil Jasper that looked sort of similar that I have never been able to get shiny.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 29, 2016 1:47:30 GMT -5
Try dipping the part in hot water, plastic expands more with heat than metal, should ease the slide of the roller. This is my plan as soon as I get enough time to take it apart enough to get the roller out.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 28, 2016 20:47:35 GMT -5
The SiC 30 does definitely take some extra effort, mainly that you pretty much seem to need to use it with a slurry thickener like clay/cat litter. The 46-70 and 60-90 both are pretty hassle free in my experience. Having said that, now that I have gotten the SiC 30 situation figured out I will be ordering more once my current supply runs out.
I have done limited testing on the difference in grinding efficiency between the SiC 30 and SiC 60-90. My data set is very limited but after four runs with the SiC 30 and two with SiC 60-90 it looks like I am getting close to 40% more mass loss per cycle with the SiC 30.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 28, 2016 18:49:20 GMT -5
Thanks for the help! I checked my tumbler and sure enough the plastic on one of the rollers has slid way to one side. I need to figure out how to get the plastic back where it belongs. It is pretty darn difficult to budge. I had to take the roller off the machine. I was then able to slide the plastic portion down to the right location. It was not easy to do this! I put some gorilla tape on each end hoping that would stop the migration, but it still did it again after a few days. I decided I wouldn't mess with it anymore after that. Hopefully you can find a solution that works! That doesn't sound encouraging. Maybe I need to epoxy it on or something similar. I tried taking the roller off but it is proving a little more difficult than I expected.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 28, 2016 18:47:54 GMT -5
I had a similar problem and was doing the HF return dance until I eventually got a refund after about a year and four machines. Bought a Model B. The Model B is definitely on my wish list. While trying to trouble shoot this problem I have watched quite a few videos, several of which were about the Lortone 33B that looks basically like what the HF tumbler is a copy of. Taking my HF apart and watching those videos really made it obvious to me how much better engineered the Lortone machines are. In this case I think you do get what you pay for. Unfortunately for me at the moment money is pretty tight so I will be trying to keep the HF going as long as I can as I don't think I will be getting any new tumblers for a while.
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richardh
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 391
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Post by richardh on Dec 28, 2016 16:38:48 GMT -5
Thanks for the help! I checked my tumbler and sure enough the plastic on one of the rollers has slid way to one side. I need to figure out how to get the plastic back where it belongs. It is pretty darn difficult to budge.
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