20 lb batch done 9/15/2024 (mostly cherts)

[Bob]

Rotary only. 80 grit until defect free, then 220/600 one week each (usually but some rocks might take longer than 1 week), then tin oxide polish (1 week, inspect/cull, then another week), then 3-8 hours burnish in Ivory soap. All bought except where I note otherwise. Mediocre cellphone camera but at least on tripod.


This is first batch in which I have removed the 1,000 step that used to come after 600.  Although none of these have been burnished to see if it made any difference.  I frankly can't tell the difference this summer of burnish vs. no burnish.  I will not ID all so if have questions about what something is let me know.



Stream cherts from junction of AR/OK/JS/MO.  I found.


Tecovas jasper/chert from TX.  I found.


Chinese rocks I bought or found in central China not far from Wuhan.  The obvious agates are Yangtze River agates.  


Upper left found on Lake Superior.  Upper right iron laden jasper found MN shore of Lake Superior.


Left is I think tiger iron not tiger eye.


Left is more of the psilomelane laden rocks fouind in CA desert.  Some are flawless.  There is a chance some of the flawless ones came from Quartzsite show.  Right are snowy quartz or quartzite found here and there.


Left is chalcedony found from Cerro Pedernal in NM.  Middle bottom is taconite found from north central MN, the first I've tried to polish.  It is soft and grinds away quickly and not sure if polish will last or not.


Various that I think are forms of rhyolite.


Almost all this pet wood I found in many places.  I have quite a collection now of many kinds and colors of it.  It take a lot of trimming to come out with perfect pieces but I'm patient.


Chert from western OK found.


Misc. unclassified probably mostly jaspers, mostly found.

[pebblesky]

There are so many high quality self finds! They are all tumbled so nicely. Inspired by your posts, I am tempted to show off my tumbled self finds...oh wait they became so small and I couldn't find them any more.

[Drummond Island Rocks]

Only a small amount of my tumbles are self collected so I am jealous of your finds.

All came out nice. The Chinese stuff is really cool and the pet wood is great. I have a barrel pet wood I have been working on this year. Most folks do not go for flawless when it comes to pet wood as it looks really good when some character is left in it. I cant help myself though. The challenge of flawless prevails.

Chuck

[python]

Great job done on some great pieces!

[chris1956]

Those look great!  Nice unakite.  

[dshanpnw]

Great looking batch, well done. I like the Tecovas jasper and chert, nice colors. Thanks for the provenance of them.

[Bob]

Sept 16, 2024 15:02:00 GMT -5 Drummond Island Rocks said:

Only a small amount of my tumbles are self collected so I am jealous of your finds.

All came out nice. The Chinese stuff is really cool and the pet wood is great. I have a barrel pet wood I have been working on this year. Most folks do not go for flawless when it comes to pet wood as it looks really good when some character is left in it. I cant help myself though. The challenge of flawless prevails.

Chuck

A rockhound was at my place recently and we poured out all of my 12 years worth of pet wood.  He spread it all out and just spent 30 mins going through it all and gasping.  I used to think that because I saw off the problem areas, and end up with lots of flat sides because of that, that although perfect or nearly so that it was kind of an ugly pile.  He said it was exciting to see it all together and so it kind of has me excited now that I have quite a bit of it all together.

Some pieces go back to the saw over and over after another week in rough grind.  I don't want to lose any material not necessary, so I will sometimes saw out another 1/8" or 1/4" toward a crack hoping it goes no further.  Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.  I end up throwing about 25% of my pet wood collected away, sometimes after several weeks of work.

I never saw until at least 1 week in rough grind to clean it up and take off some of the rind.  Part of the fun and challenge is deciding whether to saw along a crack, and end up with lengthwise pieces but less of the cross grain, vs. sawing the ends shorter in hopes of ending up with a cylinder that has ends that show a lot of cross grain.  I'm very fond of looking at those cross grain ends, so I do a lot more that way than lengthwise sawing.

[HankRocks]

I use a different standard for tumbling petrified wood. The only cutting in addition to the scraps is to cut a flat base on pieces that are 2 or 3 inches or more in length. That allows them to stand up when they are finished. For other pieces with recessed lines I usually do not tumble them to smooth, especially if the recess is a different color. I like the contrast and the character it adds to the rock. 

That's my personal choice and it works well with some of the Texas wood that has pockets of softer material that can be lighter in color than the rest of the piece.

Almost all of the pieces in the picture below are not 100% polished, The light color areas are softer and have not taken a polish. For me that gives them more character and at first glance the lack of polish on the light areas is not obvious unless you use a loop. I tumble for me, if I like it then it's a good polish. It's another reason I have never done the contest as I tumble for me and I am the judge!! Hopefully that does not sound too selfish.


IMG_3395 by Findrocks, on Flickr

Same with this 4 pound piece, the white areas are depressions that did not really polish. It was also a matter of not wanting to extend the tumbling until one of the fractures let go. They appeared to be healed but you never know.


IMG_6013 by Findrocks, on Flickr

[Bob]

They certainly are beautiful Hank! Know what you mean about those low and lighter colored areas. Is that 2nd piece palm? I've never seen one with grain quite like that, but don't know much about what palm should look like.

[HankRocks]

That Palm was almost like a Cypress root nob although I do not know if Palm plants have such a thing. Some of the agatized Palm in South Texas comes in a variety of colors.

The ones below had sort of auburn color areas in the base material.


IMG_1942 by Findrocks, on Flickr