Nina
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2022
Posts: 4
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Post by Nina on May 3, 2022 12:17:03 GMT -5
Hi everyone, I'm Nina and I recently (2020) moved back to the US and I'm getting reacquainted with all my old hobbies and passions and rocks are one of them.
I was recently gifted a free national geographic brand rock tumbler and though I know there are better and possibly cheaper professional tumbling machines and the NG brand has quite a few issues and complaints, for freeee this one is doing just great. I bought a different brand of tumbling grit from Amazon and it seems to be much better than the NG stuff. I do have a bit of a habit of using my rotary tool when I don't have the patience to wait for the tumbler to finish the work but I'm not sure yet whether that's a bad thing...
I look forward to learning from all of you as I reacquaint myself with the world of rocks.
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stonemon
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2017
Posts: 1,024
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Post by stonemon on May 3, 2022 12:50:12 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum Nina! Lots of experienced tumblers here to answer you questions.
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Post by jasoninsd on May 3, 2022 16:41:44 GMT -5
Hey Nina! Welcome to the forum from South Dakota! Well, unless you're putting pits into the rocks with the rotary, you're doing just fine! A lot of people will "pre-shape" their rough prior to putting it into stage one. I will shape mine with either the trim saw, or I have a batch of Obsidian that's running in the vibratory that I ran over my cabbing wheels to get them "rough" shaped how I wanted...
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catskillrocks
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2008
Posts: 1,270
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Post by catskillrocks on May 3, 2022 17:18:46 GMT -5
Warm welcome to the forum Nina .
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Post by vegasjames on May 3, 2022 17:59:10 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum Nina.
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Post by rockjunquie on May 3, 2022 18:34:33 GMT -5
Welcome from Virginia!
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Post by hummingbirdstones on May 3, 2022 19:38:05 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona!
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rocket
spending too much on rocks
Quality slabs for quality cabs in 2022
Member since September 2020
Posts: 292
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Post by rocket on May 3, 2022 21:53:34 GMT -5
Welcome from Maryland
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rockbrain
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2022
Posts: 2,389
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Post by rockbrain on May 4, 2022 9:06:13 GMT -5
Welcome from the middle of California. There's a wealth of knowledge and a lot of great people to learn from here!
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Post by drocknut on May 4, 2022 13:25:04 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum from south central Arizona
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Nina
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2022
Posts: 4
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Post by Nina on May 4, 2022 13:53:13 GMT -5
Thank you for all the warm welcomes! I'm pretty excited to be a part of this forum. While I was overseas most of the cooler hobbies I enjoyed were kind of considered "guy only" hobbies and I was never really accepted in those groups, much less given any real advice. It's a pretty common issue in Latin America. In my personal experience marine fish tanks, diving and rock collecting are all considered manly things to have and do and there are very few women who decide to pursue them in those countries.
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Nina
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2022
Posts: 4
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Post by Nina on May 4, 2022 13:59:30 GMT -5
Hey Nina! Welcome to the forum from South Dakota! Well, unless you're putting pits into the rocks with the rotary, you're doing just fine! A lot of people will "pre-shape" their rough prior to putting it into stage one. I will shape mine with either the trim saw, or I have a batch of Obsidian that's running in the vibratory that I ran over my cabbing wheels to get them "rough" shaped how I wanted... The reshaping is what I've been doing with my current batch, good to know I'm on the right track. But if a few stones don't have a good enough polish, I've used polishing compound and a buffing rotary bit as well and get an almost mirror shine.
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Nina
off to a rocking start
Member since April 2022
Posts: 4
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Post by Nina on May 4, 2022 13:59:44 GMT -5
I'll be making a second post with my current project soon just to get some more input and advice. Right now I'm only tumbling desert jasper but I received an early mother's day gift from my husband in the form of some cheap stabilized turquoise for me to "practice on" except they're so pretty (I'm not experienced enough to know if it's real turquoise or a mix of similar looking stones, but beauty is subjective and I find them lovely to look at) despite being cheap I don't want to mess them up. I'll post on it soon I hope, as time allows.
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victor1941
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2011
Posts: 1,958
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Post by victor1941 on May 4, 2022 16:54:44 GMT -5
Nina, welcome from Victor in Austin, Texas. I am sure all will turn out well.
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Post by Starguy on May 4, 2022 19:32:50 GMT -5
NinaI use my rotary tool all the time to speed up nice tumbler rocks. It’s a CabKing 8V1 so it helps a lot. There’s no shame in speeding things up. Welcome to RTH. You can get almost any question answered here.
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phixer
having dreams about rocks
Member since January 2022
Posts: 69
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Post by phixer on May 7, 2022 8:03:15 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum from Massachusetts
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LazerFlash
Cave Dweller
The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the toilet.
Member since September 2021
Posts: 548
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Post by LazerFlash on May 22, 2022 18:35:41 GMT -5
Greetings and felicitations from Charles Town WV. (Think abolitionist John Brown's pre-Civil War raid.)
You've certainly come to the right place! I still consider myself a newbie, but I've learned a lot from the folks here, but also via trial and error. Don't be shy about asking for advice/help.
FWIW, like many others here have already commented, I also do some rotary tool re-shaping. I don't limit that to only stage 1, however. I've occasionally reshaped a stage 2 stone and thrown it back in the stage 2 barrel.
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