Post by herchenx on May 23, 2012 2:14:46 GMT -5
well I've been living with the 65# tumbler rolling away for almost 8 weeks now. We are heading out of town for the weekend so I wanted to empty it before we left so it wouldn't have to run (or sit with slurry in the barrel!) while we were gone.
All in all I was pretty pleased with the tumble. Now I have a 5 gallon bucket full of mostly lake superior agate. A lot of it is ready to move onto the vibe, but A LOT of it still needs more weeks in the rotary.
Here's the big boy rolling along:
I opened it earlier and added some water and a ground up bar of ivory soap to loosed the slurry a little:
I weighed it (tough to read, but after adding water and grit 3 times it weighed 120#!!):
I was thinking I'd pour it through hardware cloth:
The whole notion of lifting and pouring 120# aside, I realized that the hardware cloth could possible scratch these agates, so I ended up carrying the thing out into the dark yard, getting the hose, and slowly working my way through the material by scooping it into my small kitchen colander and rinsing it as I went.
This actually worked out pretty well. It took me about 2 hours to get everything fairly well rinsed.
I put it all in a 5-gallon bucket and covered it with water to keep any residual grit from setting up in the cracks.
The photo doesn't do it justice, these rocks are beautiful!!
I filled the UV10 to COMPLETELY FULL, no ceramic media needed this time. There was plenty of teeny stuff to carry grit and all sizes between to make sure the vibe can do its job.
I was all ready to get it going when I learned that I ONLY HAD ONE TABLESPOON OF 120/220 SIC!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo
So now I need to order some, but it won't be here in time to start this run before the weekend. I'll have to time next week carefully as I can start the vibe Monday, clean and recharge Wednesday and then clean it and let is sit while I'm out of town the following weekend, THEN try to finish it before we head on our big road trip to Rhode Island!
Also, the garage is now much quieter. I've been cleaning and letting the tumbles sit so we can be gone without worrying about them. I'm down to the 3# and the 3x1.5# running still. I'll clean them out tomorrow night.
All in all I was pretty pleased with the tumble. Now I have a 5 gallon bucket full of mostly lake superior agate. A lot of it is ready to move onto the vibe, but A LOT of it still needs more weeks in the rotary.
Here's the big boy rolling along:
I opened it earlier and added some water and a ground up bar of ivory soap to loosed the slurry a little:
I weighed it (tough to read, but after adding water and grit 3 times it weighed 120#!!):
I was thinking I'd pour it through hardware cloth:
The whole notion of lifting and pouring 120# aside, I realized that the hardware cloth could possible scratch these agates, so I ended up carrying the thing out into the dark yard, getting the hose, and slowly working my way through the material by scooping it into my small kitchen colander and rinsing it as I went.
This actually worked out pretty well. It took me about 2 hours to get everything fairly well rinsed.
I put it all in a 5-gallon bucket and covered it with water to keep any residual grit from setting up in the cracks.
The photo doesn't do it justice, these rocks are beautiful!!
I filled the UV10 to COMPLETELY FULL, no ceramic media needed this time. There was plenty of teeny stuff to carry grit and all sizes between to make sure the vibe can do its job.
I was all ready to get it going when I learned that I ONLY HAD ONE TABLESPOON OF 120/220 SIC!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo
So now I need to order some, but it won't be here in time to start this run before the weekend. I'll have to time next week carefully as I can start the vibe Monday, clean and recharge Wednesday and then clean it and let is sit while I'm out of town the following weekend, THEN try to finish it before we head on our big road trip to Rhode Island!
Also, the garage is now much quieter. I've been cleaning and letting the tumbles sit so we can be gone without worrying about them. I'm down to the 3# and the 3x1.5# running still. I'll clean them out tomorrow night.