Post by herchenx on Jan 19, 2012 2:11:36 GMT -5
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I AM MODIFYING THIS TO GIVE SOME CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE:
Thanks to John at JSgems for the diamond paste and pads, I haven't used them yet but I can't wait - maybe tonight I will polish this up. The rest of the parts I bought before I knew about John - I got them at Dad's Rock Shop. They shipped fast and treated me well.
UPDATE: I have posted the finished(ish) cab in the cabbing forum:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=ccabs&action=display&thread=50017
***********************************************
Today has been something else.
First, I got a call from Jim up in Wyoming (wampidy) and we met over the phone and talked for 20 minutes or so. It was great to meet and get to know just a little about him and what he does there.
I shared a little of what I'm up to and had to get back to work. I've been PM-ing several (a number actually) of folks for different reasons - almost always because they PM me and have extended some incredible generosity or kind words or advice just to help me get going.
This group has something special in my opinion and I am enjoying getting drawn into it!
WELL I finished my work day and headed home. We had some company coming over, but when I arrived home I found this on the front porch:
Could this be what I have been waiting for? I'd love to find out, but we have company so the box just sits there.
After a good visit, then getting the kids dinner, cleaned up, homework done, little ones in bed, and fixing the leaking sink sprayer thing (we just got the replacement in today's mail) I finally headed out to grab the box and took it to the garage.
I opened it up and it WAS the Lortone combination machine I bought from a friend a couple weeks ago, and as expected it needed a little work:
I knew the saw blade, grinding wheel, expando, drive belt and polishing pad would all need replaced. I also knew it would need some way to get water flowing onto the wheel.
I had intended to poke at it and get it working over the next few weekends, but impatience prevailed - fortunately!
I cleared off the heavy-duty work cart and got started. About an hour later, I had replaced the blade, grinding wheel and expando. I found that in spite of its age, the belt was in decent shape, and even though I replaced the expando, the old one seemed to be in decent shape as well.
Here is the thing with the new parts:
So I was going to call it a night because I still didn't have the pieces I needed for the water delivery system. But I remembered the wand thing from the sink repair earlier and it turned out that the 4 feet of black poly hose was the perfect size to attach to the existing hardware AND to the fish pond water pump I bought at Ace yesterday.
I filled a 5-gallon bucket with water, put the newly attached pump in the bottom of the cart, and another bucket to catch the used water and tested it out, AND IT WORKED!
I added mineral oil to the saw reservoir and grabbed a large reddish rock I picked up on Monday when I went for a walk by the river - and figured I'd give the trim saw a try. I've wet cut cinder blocks before, and some bathroom tile, but never a rock.
It was too big to go in the vice, so I figured I'd freehand it and see what happened. This was my first learning opportunity. The saw had a plastic cover that I sort of assumed was some sort of inconvenient safety device, so in the spirit of safety I had set it aside. I fired up the motor and it started whirring as I expected it would, but I felt something wet on my chest and looked down to see a line of oil ruining my shirt.
Did I mention that since I hadn't intended to fix things up I hadn't bothered to change from my work clothes. Yeah that wasn't a good decision.
I turned everything off, and put the clear plastic cover over the saw and figured out how to get my hands in either side and started the machine back up. I made pretty quick work of a first cut through the stone:
I went ahead and made another freehand cut to remove a slab from the end of the stone. I initially had thought it was some ferrous quarts of some sort, but as I looked I think it was some sort of granite. One of you who is smarter than me can lend your opinion.
Anyhow, I started working the slab on the brand new grinding wheel and it just skated across the rock without really doing much. I had the water on and working, but it seemed like there was no "tooth" to the stone even though it was a coarse (100 grit) stone. This went on for about 10 minutes and then suddenly things changed. The wheel started chattering against the stone and taking off material very quickly. Lesson 2 was learned as I recalled reading somewhere that new wheels need to be prepared or broken in or something.
I rather quickly rounded off the top of the slab and smoothed it as best I could with the coarse wheel.
When I felt like it was evenly rounded and smooth I moved over to the 220 grit belt on the expando. I worked and worked it, using my fingers to run over every surface, finding spots with scratches and working them until they were even and smooth.
There was a decent scratch on the top that was not coming out, so I took it back to the wheel and worked it out a little then redid the 220 again.
I shut off the machine once I felt like the stone was evenly smooth and I swapped the 220 for a 400 grit belt. I went through the same process until I felt like it was evenly smooth. I was getting really excited at this stage because the stone was starting to become something I could not have found in nature. It was smooth enough that it was past the point of a river or ocean rock.
I swapped the 400 for an 800 and repeated the process.
I worked the stone for about an hour altogether I think (once I cut the piece off the larger stone) and it is not done, but I wanted to check on the tumbler and have time to make this update so I will resume tomorrow or on the weekend.
Here is the not-complete stone:
For my tumble, I am following the coarse stage instructions that Don wrote up here:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=trtphoto&action=display&thread=22055&page=4
Today was day 4, so I've already added the first round of 3Tb of 60/90 - tonight I added 3 more.
Here are both barrels:
I have tons to learn, but today was a lot of fun and now I am exhausted and need to go to bed.
Night all.
I AM MODIFYING THIS TO GIVE SOME CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE:
Thanks to John at JSgems for the diamond paste and pads, I haven't used them yet but I can't wait - maybe tonight I will polish this up. The rest of the parts I bought before I knew about John - I got them at Dad's Rock Shop. They shipped fast and treated me well.
UPDATE: I have posted the finished(ish) cab in the cabbing forum:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=ccabs&action=display&thread=50017
***********************************************
Today has been something else.
First, I got a call from Jim up in Wyoming (wampidy) and we met over the phone and talked for 20 minutes or so. It was great to meet and get to know just a little about him and what he does there.
I shared a little of what I'm up to and had to get back to work. I've been PM-ing several (a number actually) of folks for different reasons - almost always because they PM me and have extended some incredible generosity or kind words or advice just to help me get going.
This group has something special in my opinion and I am enjoying getting drawn into it!
WELL I finished my work day and headed home. We had some company coming over, but when I arrived home I found this on the front porch:
Could this be what I have been waiting for? I'd love to find out, but we have company so the box just sits there.
After a good visit, then getting the kids dinner, cleaned up, homework done, little ones in bed, and fixing the leaking sink sprayer thing (we just got the replacement in today's mail) I finally headed out to grab the box and took it to the garage.
I opened it up and it WAS the Lortone combination machine I bought from a friend a couple weeks ago, and as expected it needed a little work:
I knew the saw blade, grinding wheel, expando, drive belt and polishing pad would all need replaced. I also knew it would need some way to get water flowing onto the wheel.
I had intended to poke at it and get it working over the next few weekends, but impatience prevailed - fortunately!
I cleared off the heavy-duty work cart and got started. About an hour later, I had replaced the blade, grinding wheel and expando. I found that in spite of its age, the belt was in decent shape, and even though I replaced the expando, the old one seemed to be in decent shape as well.
Here is the thing with the new parts:
So I was going to call it a night because I still didn't have the pieces I needed for the water delivery system. But I remembered the wand thing from the sink repair earlier and it turned out that the 4 feet of black poly hose was the perfect size to attach to the existing hardware AND to the fish pond water pump I bought at Ace yesterday.
I filled a 5-gallon bucket with water, put the newly attached pump in the bottom of the cart, and another bucket to catch the used water and tested it out, AND IT WORKED!
I added mineral oil to the saw reservoir and grabbed a large reddish rock I picked up on Monday when I went for a walk by the river - and figured I'd give the trim saw a try. I've wet cut cinder blocks before, and some bathroom tile, but never a rock.
It was too big to go in the vice, so I figured I'd freehand it and see what happened. This was my first learning opportunity. The saw had a plastic cover that I sort of assumed was some sort of inconvenient safety device, so in the spirit of safety I had set it aside. I fired up the motor and it started whirring as I expected it would, but I felt something wet on my chest and looked down to see a line of oil ruining my shirt.
Did I mention that since I hadn't intended to fix things up I hadn't bothered to change from my work clothes. Yeah that wasn't a good decision.
I turned everything off, and put the clear plastic cover over the saw and figured out how to get my hands in either side and started the machine back up. I made pretty quick work of a first cut through the stone:
I went ahead and made another freehand cut to remove a slab from the end of the stone. I initially had thought it was some ferrous quarts of some sort, but as I looked I think it was some sort of granite. One of you who is smarter than me can lend your opinion.
Anyhow, I started working the slab on the brand new grinding wheel and it just skated across the rock without really doing much. I had the water on and working, but it seemed like there was no "tooth" to the stone even though it was a coarse (100 grit) stone. This went on for about 10 minutes and then suddenly things changed. The wheel started chattering against the stone and taking off material very quickly. Lesson 2 was learned as I recalled reading somewhere that new wheels need to be prepared or broken in or something.
I rather quickly rounded off the top of the slab and smoothed it as best I could with the coarse wheel.
When I felt like it was evenly rounded and smooth I moved over to the 220 grit belt on the expando. I worked and worked it, using my fingers to run over every surface, finding spots with scratches and working them until they were even and smooth.
There was a decent scratch on the top that was not coming out, so I took it back to the wheel and worked it out a little then redid the 220 again.
I shut off the machine once I felt like the stone was evenly smooth and I swapped the 220 for a 400 grit belt. I went through the same process until I felt like it was evenly smooth. I was getting really excited at this stage because the stone was starting to become something I could not have found in nature. It was smooth enough that it was past the point of a river or ocean rock.
I swapped the 400 for an 800 and repeated the process.
I worked the stone for about an hour altogether I think (once I cut the piece off the larger stone) and it is not done, but I wanted to check on the tumbler and have time to make this update so I will resume tomorrow or on the weekend.
Here is the not-complete stone:
For my tumble, I am following the coarse stage instructions that Don wrote up here:
forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/index.cgi?board=trtphoto&action=display&thread=22055&page=4
Today was day 4, so I've already added the first round of 3Tb of 60/90 - tonight I added 3 more.
Here are both barrels:
I have tons to learn, but today was a lot of fun and now I am exhausted and need to go to bed.
Night all.