Post by herchenx on Mar 18, 2012 21:25:17 GMT -5
For anyone new who may want to know what it looks like and what amounts can get you started with a larger barrel I present my new 12# Lortone barrel and show what I put in and how much grit and water I use.
A new 12# barrel, I bought this last week from an unknown Craigslist seller for a song. It had only been used for dry tumbling 1 load of rifle brass so it was practically new:
Next I added a partial bag (~1.5#) of citrine from therockshed.com ("trs" from here on out)
2# brecciated jasper from trs
1# Yellow Jasper from trs
~5# of Lake Superior Agate I bought last week from rockhuntress:
another 1# of breccciated jasper from trs
That pretty much filled the barrel to just over 3/4 full
I added 1.5 Cups water and 1.5 Cups 46/70 (very coarse) grit from rts
Then I buttoned it all up and it has been tumbling for a day now.
I will check it in a couple days and make sure there is a decent slurry. I may also add some rock since the very first grind often loses a decent amount of volume.
UPDATE #2
OK, four days in and there is a great slurry. Interestingly there was some "oily-ness" in the slurry which resulted from the residue of the walnut shells that were in the barrel previously.
I went ahead and put in some rutilated quartz, some carnelian and a couple pieces of Montana Agate tumbling rough - all from therockshed
UPDATE 3, 11 DAYS TUMBLING.
I opened it up to a thick slurry. I am that my slurries are thicker than they should be, so when I recharged I added 1.5 cups of 60/90 and 2 cups of water. I also pulled all the rutilated quartz and citrine out to keep them from being ground to nothing. Actually the citrine was doing ok, but the rutilated quartz was pretty beat up. I made up the volume with some of the abundant aventurine I have.
A new 12# barrel, I bought this last week from an unknown Craigslist seller for a song. It had only been used for dry tumbling 1 load of rifle brass so it was practically new:
Next I added a partial bag (~1.5#) of citrine from therockshed.com ("trs" from here on out)
2# brecciated jasper from trs
1# Yellow Jasper from trs
~5# of Lake Superior Agate I bought last week from rockhuntress:
another 1# of breccciated jasper from trs
That pretty much filled the barrel to just over 3/4 full
I added 1.5 Cups water and 1.5 Cups 46/70 (very coarse) grit from rts
Then I buttoned it all up and it has been tumbling for a day now.
I will check it in a couple days and make sure there is a decent slurry. I may also add some rock since the very first grind often loses a decent amount of volume.
UPDATE #2
OK, four days in and there is a great slurry. Interestingly there was some "oily-ness" in the slurry which resulted from the residue of the walnut shells that were in the barrel previously.
I went ahead and put in some rutilated quartz, some carnelian and a couple pieces of Montana Agate tumbling rough - all from therockshed
UPDATE 3, 11 DAYS TUMBLING.
I opened it up to a thick slurry. I am that my slurries are thicker than they should be, so when I recharged I added 1.5 cups of 60/90 and 2 cups of water. I also pulled all the rutilated quartz and citrine out to keep them from being ground to nothing. Actually the citrine was doing ok, but the rutilated quartz was pretty beat up. I made up the volume with some of the abundant aventurine I have.