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Post by stoner on Jan 9, 2004 2:14:27 GMT -5
Hi all. I went down to Morro Bay(central Calif. coast) last weekend and was able to see nature's tumbler in action. I went crazy on the beach collecting rocks to bring home and finish what nature started. Some of the rocks already had a shine to them, whereas most looked as though they skipped the first 2 steps and went into the pre-polish with irregular shaped edges and pits. I found some real beauties. I'm sorting them now and will tumbling them according to their smoothness. Do you guys think I can get by skipping the first 2 steps if the rocks are well rounded? or are there scratches present that I just can't see.
This site is awesome. Keep on posting.
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Post by Original Admin on Jan 9, 2004 19:31:18 GMT -5
Hi stoner, It always gets me when people write about river rocks or beach bound samples. It gets me jealous as I live where I can get neither. Anyway - I think along these lines :- If a sample is dense enough and hard enough it will tumble and eventually shine. If its shining when **totally dry** in nature then give it a 400 then a polish if its shaped right, otherwise if its shining but not shaped right for you - start it at 80 until the shape is ok then go through the phases. If it is totally smooth looking and feeling, and also roundish - but still dull - then 80/20 it wont ever shine. (depends on its natural surrounding grit) There are loads of parameters to tumbling - and with certain finds it is best to just stick them on a machine and see what happens - its half the fun. A mate of mine found a pebble he thought was ideal to tumble - orange ish in colour, I stuck it in with the rest of the pebbles he got me from a beach in scotland - and in a week the whole lot was reduced to mud in the barrell!!! This also happened to me when another friend got me some "amber" from Cley in Norfolk (i went there after he told me about the place aswell!!) - his stuff lasted 3 days. He was ok about it and we had a laugh. "I spent 4 hours staggaring about in the freezing cold looking for those samples" he said!!! eeeeeek - I ground them into mush. Moral is........................maybe Take care when grinding samples you dont know the hardness of - check every day and observe what is happening in the barrel so that you dont end up with slush. I'm rambling. Andy.
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Post by stoner on Jan 10, 2004 0:39:09 GMT -5
Thanks for the reply Andy. I pretty much had the same thoughts on what to do with my beach finds. That's the nice thing about this message board, help and ideas are just a click away. Thanks for starting it. I found your story about the pebbles pretty funny. Most of the shiny rocks I found on the beach were of pebble size also, that's why I thought I might skip the first 2 steps. I'll let everyone know how they come out.
keep on tumblin'
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