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Post by aDave on Jul 29, 2019 20:26:21 GMT -5
fernwood - could you post where you got that?
Tela, that looks to be something that was posted on the 'net somewhere. As I mentioned, it's available on the Rock Shed website, but I chose not to link it, as it's not something we should be promoting here IMHO. Substandard tumbling intructions from manufacturers usually cause a bunch of work for our experienced tumblers. Usually we're having to undo what was previously read about in said instructions. As suggested, this should not go into Tutorials. If it did, it should go into the tutorials about what NOT to do.
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Post by aDave on Jul 29, 2019 19:23:03 GMT -5
Those turned out great. FWIW, of all stages, it's the polish stage that I find the most difficult to keep moving. Like you, I've figured out what to do in the other stages, and I'm getting a better handle there as time goes on. Frankly, instead of just focusing on (lack of) movement and then adding water, I'm learning to watch dryness instead. Just focusing on lack of circulation had me over-watering at times, as I could literally end up pouring water out of the barrel. As mentioned, the polish stage is where things get tough for me. But, I'm thinking it's not so much a water problem as it is a lack of friction to help move the rocks. I think it's this, as there are times I start my polish stage and material is barely moving. And yes, water had been properly dumped before starting. However, as soon as I start to add polish, material starts speeding up and circulates as I would expect. By the next morning, material is slowly moving again. I used to worry about it, but as long as there is "some" circulation/movement, then polishing is occurring. The only time when I absolutely shut things down is when there is no circulation whatsoever and material is simply standing still, and sometimes that turns out to be less than the proscribed 48 hours. There may be other variables such as how full the barrel is, or if I have enough ceramics, but I haven't been able to isolate anything else just yet. Hope this helps some. Thanks aDave for the help! I assumed the opposite thinking that the material would move more freely as I progressed through the stages so when the movement slowed compared to previous stage I was concerned something was off. Knowing that now, I'm going to start the final polish stage! One more question if I may- assuming the initial load into lot o is almost all the way full w rocks and ceramics, if dont remove any stones from load do I need to worry about adding material as batch progresses through stages to make up for whats ground away? (assuming all rocks are around 7 hardness) thanks again for your help! Please don't take my findings as Gospel. Let's just say I have a hunch about it and work with things as I can. Just a note - I talked to the owner of the Lot-O company, as I was concerned about the placement of my dowel and how things were going in the first place. When I mentioned that Borax was added in some stages, his concern was about making things more "slippery." That somewhat goes along with what I may be seeing in my polish stage (lack of friction to move material). As far as barrel load, I may be about 1 1/4 to 2" below the opening when I start the stage. I've never measured. But, if you're filling to the bottom of the neck/hole, you may be over-filling. I never worry about adding more rocks to offset any material loss with a previous stage in the Lot-O. There simply isn't enough material removed from 120/220 to finish to worry about that. The biggest amount of material removal will take place at your coarse stage in rotary. Subsequent steps in the Lot-O don't make enough of difference in how much material may have been lost there. I seem to recall that someone did an experiment some time ago, and total loss from the 120/220 stage to polish may only have been 10% by weight. That's not enough for me to worry about. If you were totally concerned about it, I'd just add more ceramics, but I'm not sure that's necessary.
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Post by aDave on Jul 29, 2019 19:07:50 GMT -5
Pretty frickin' awesome. The patterns in the OJ are especially nice. Well done.
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Post by aDave on Jul 29, 2019 17:48:51 GMT -5
Those turned out great.
FWIW, of all stages, it's the polish stage that I find the most difficult to keep moving. Like you, I've figured out what to do in the other stages, and I'm getting a better handle there as time goes on. Frankly, instead of just focusing on (lack of) movement and then adding water, I'm learning to watch dryness instead. Just focusing on lack of circulation had me over-watering at times, as I could literally end up pouring water out of the barrel.
As mentioned, the polish stage is where things get tough for me. But, I'm thinking it's not so much a water problem as it is a lack of friction to help move the rocks. I think it's this, as there are times I start my polish stage and material is barely moving. And yes, water had been properly dumped before starting. However, as soon as I start to add polish, material starts speeding up and circulates as I would expect. By the next morning, material is slowly moving again.
I used to worry about it, but as long as there is "some" circulation/movement, then polishing is occurring. The only time when I absolutely shut things down is when there is no circulation whatsoever and material is simply standing still, and sometimes that turns out to be less than the proscribed 48 hours.
There may be other variables such as how full the barrel is, or if I have enough ceramics, but I haven't been able to isolate anything else just yet. Hope this helps some.
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Post by aDave on Jul 29, 2019 12:23:56 GMT -5
As you noted, those instructions are problematic, mostly due to timeframes that are recommended in some of the steps and what should be expected at the end of some of the steps. But, that's not out of the norm since most instructions that come with tumblers are pretty lacking, and that's why new tumblers usually end up here looking for help. FWIW, those instructions were apparently written in 1973, and they can be found on the Rock Shed website.
I'm short on time right now, so I won't get into detail. However, there are plenty of threads here where folks should be able to find good instructions.
I'd simply warn new folks to not follow this particular set of instructions, as most timeframes are too short for good results in a rotary in my experience.
Lastly, that attempt at the chart doesn't format correctly, and it won't due to different screen sizes on devices.
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Post by aDave on Jul 27, 2019 18:18:29 GMT -5
Thanks guys! Regards to the Baby Blue Aventurine, this is how the steps have gone so far Started with 66lbs of Aventurine with no tumbling medium in a 90 lb Rotary Tumbler *Stage 1 - 16 ozs of Coarse grit from National Geographic Tumbling grit set. Tumbled for 5 days *Stage 2 - 16ozs Medium Grit from National Geographic Tumbling grit set. Tumbled 8 days - Added 15lbs of corundum pieces for tumbling medium to take up space in tumbler *Stage 3 - 10ozs Pre-Polish from National Geographic Tumbling grit set. Tumbled 7 days (Did i use enough pre polish here? i was unsure of the amount to use) - 15 lbs of Corundum still in with rocks *Polish - 8ozs of Aluminum Oxide has ran for 12 days so far (I wasnt sure on the amount of polish to use, a member of the local lapidary club said not to use too much so i cut back on what i was going to use) I rinsed and cleaned the stones pretty thouroughly when changing the grits and used a different tumbling barrel for each stage. I ran water through the rocks for around 15-20 minutes to try to fight against contamination because i know this is the most likely culprit in most stones not getting a good polish. I should mention that i am doing this on a large scale because i work for a company that sells rocks and gemstones and have access to a boat load of rough rocks. I think first and foremost you are not using enough grit. We still have a jar of the NG coarse grit from when we first started. Comparing the granules side by side with grits we have purchased from other vendors it looks most similar to 60/90 SiC. Just weighed some 60/90 SiC that we purchased from The Rock Shed, 16 fairly level tablespoons weighed 16.4 ounces. We use more than that in our fifteen pound barrel. It looks like your other grits/polish are off as well. There are plenty of recipes out there already so I won't get into that other than to mention that plenty of them call for 1 1/2 to 2 Tablespoons of grit per pound of rock being tumbled. You can do the math. You do not have access to cheap grit from your employer do you? Also, would love to see a picture of your ninety pounder in action. To think I find cleaning out a fifteen barrel a chore sometimes . Al rocksbro, in looking back through your thread, I'd have to agree with Al - you may really need to increase your grit amounts. While I haven't looked to be sure, your amounts seem somewhere near what is used in 12-15 lb barrels. Since you're at 90, you may need to increase four-fold. Here is a link to Lortone's 40 lb tumbler. A few pages in, there are grit amounts for that barrel where you could certainly adjust to your situation. As far as polish, you can cut back on that quite a bit and not go by what is listed in the manual. Maybe go with 1/3-1/2 to start and see how that goes. When I was rotary finishing in smaller barrels, I cut back on the recommended polish amount by almost 2/3. End results were still very, very good. cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1783/4633/t/4/assets/C20_and_C40_Tumbler_Instruction.pdf?0
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Post by aDave on Jul 25, 2019 0:08:16 GMT -5
Wait...one week with the carnelian? Those are wet as well, correct?
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Post by aDave on Jul 24, 2019 13:33:46 GMT -5
If that's who I think it is, I believe he also has a YouTube channel where his vids are pretty amazing. I've seen them before, and the guy in this video kind of looks like him. I'll have to see if I can find the channel.
ETA: Found him...Zach King. He's been on YouTube for a while, so a search of his name there will bring up all kinds of compilation videos of his work. Looks like he's doing alot of commercial type stuff lately.
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Post by aDave on Jul 23, 2019 15:27:21 GMT -5
Welcome, Rob Jugglerguy pretty much hit the big questions. While getting those answers will certainly help, I've got one more for you... What kind of polish are you using? If you're using a prepackaged "grit pack" of something that's labeled polish but is only 1000-1200 grit, that's not fine enough. If, in fact, that's what you're dealing with, you need to get a "real" polish. 1200 grit would only be considered a prepolish. Look to get an aluminum oxide polish in 13,000 - 14,000 grit. Very nice results can be had with that stuff. I only mention this 1200 grit "polish" issue, as it seems to come up fairly often as being the culprit for no shine. Of course, if you're already using a good (fine) polish, then go ahead and disregard everything I wrote.
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Post by aDave on Jul 22, 2019 18:52:50 GMT -5
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Post by aDave on Jul 18, 2019 14:10:32 GMT -5
LMAO! Question: Will this help me out-run a hurricane? Answer: Yes. If you diligently monitor the weather bands and local radio it gives you plenty of notice to leave before the hurricane arrives. Be sure to heed local authorities evacuation instructions. By Amazon Customer on July 18, 2019 Of course! By thomas thompson on July 18, 2019 Yes. If you diligently monitor the weather bands and local radio it gives you plenty of notice to leave before the hurricane arrives. Be sure to heed local authorities evacuation instructions. By Retevis Direct SELLER on July 18, 2019 I posted that question just to see if I would get any smart ass answers. I was shocked to see it taken seriously! LOL! Now that is just funny as hell. You win the internet today with that one. Nice to see shills there as well.
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Post by aDave on Jul 18, 2019 14:07:22 GMT -5
My wife bought those cabs in Q last year. She knew she liked the look of bumble bee, so she focused on getting cabs that had patterns that tended to be similar. With that focus, however, she hadn't realized the thickness difference of the small stones. All she knew is that she eventually wanted to send them to Tela rockjunquie , as the wife has other items of hers that she really likes. Despite being very cheap, we're really happy with what Tela did to dress them up, and we can't wait for them to arrive. Thanks Tela!
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Post by aDave on Jul 17, 2019 21:33:16 GMT -5
What's even funnier is that the background and the sky are probably more typical of tornadoes.
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Post by aDave on Jul 17, 2019 21:31:13 GMT -5
That was pretty neat.
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Post by aDave on Jul 17, 2019 20:16:57 GMT -5
Without a saw, you may be relegated to either using a sledge or possibly a mallet and chisel. I know Drummond Island Rocks does alot of hammering to break his stuff down. I've tagged him, so maybe he'll jump in.
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Post by aDave on Jul 17, 2019 12:37:44 GMT -5
nik Looks like you got it. If you want to go a bit further and eliminate the text next to your photos, you can do so by simply trimming some of the BB Code that you pasted. If it makes no difference to you, then disregard the info below. Here is the code for your particular photo. Normally, it is one long line, but I had to separate it into two to work with the embedding boxes: [url=https://flic.kr/p/2grYezL][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48207928426_18011490db_z.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://flic.kr/p/2grYezL]IMG_20190706_074212[1][/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/182276465@N04/]nik hintz[/url], on Flickr
The first part of the code which ends with the [/url] is for your image. Everything after that relates to the text being visible. If you delete everything after that first [/url] as seen in the first line, your posted photo will look like this. There will be no text, but your photo will still be clickable. Of course, you can simply just copy the first part of the code and then paste that, but I find it easier just to copy everything and delete the back end after it's pasted. Good luck.
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Post by aDave on Jul 16, 2019 20:12:38 GMT -5
Lite brite making things with light - outta sight making things with lite brite...
TOTALLY remember them. All my kids had it, too. Good for you saving yours. Awesome!
One of the most irritating jingles IMHO. It was searing in my brain as I typed my post above.
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Post by aDave on Jul 16, 2019 15:36:17 GMT -5
Just wondering how many remember this? Lite Brite. Siblings had one.
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Post by aDave on Jul 16, 2019 14:37:46 GMT -5
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Post by aDave on Jul 16, 2019 14:05:59 GMT -5
When does deer season start? We were close to it when there in October... Looks like the general season for White-tailed deer goes from Nov. 2, 2019 - Jan. 19, 2020. Archery goes from Sep. 28 - Nov. 1, 2019, though I would be surprised if archery was a "thing" in that area.
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