Please don't worry about whether or not this video is too long. Everything you've shown us is beautiful, and personally, I like the off-beat ones the best. Thank you for this cool "lesson."
Exceptionally helpful video! I have been cab wheeling some of my bevy of LSAs and just selected my first batch to tumble after I found an unintentionally included agate come out of a previous tumble.
I've been collecting gates, fossils and other minerals for almost 50 years. In my early years I tried out several types of tumblers and as mentioned, there are definitely pros and cons. I recall having some small, beautifully banded eye agates collected from local beaches. Having gone through the various grits to get to the polishing stage, not only had the eyes patterns nearly all been lost, but the colours were altering from blue tones to more reds and yellows as the exterior patina was worn away. The results were nicely polished stones, but the character and initial charm had changed dramatically and often, somewhat regrettably. In my location we have access to different beaches that produce both amygdaloid-types formed in basalt flows that were eroded out of their host rock and we have thunder- egg types that obviously come from an entirely different formation, but also related to volcanic processes. These latter types, when tumbled showed a frequent tendency to fractures and breaks as they are not as resistant as those formed in basalt. I quickly grew an appreciation for any agates that had an attractive natural exterior and gradually backed away from tumblers. However, often agates will show rough irregularities or naturally occurring, unattractive breaks or rough surfaces full of cavities or other imperfection. These types of compromised specimens can be greatly improved and often made into excellent specimens with a little work. I started pre-working rough stones using various grades of diamond grind stones to do the rough preparations prior to tumbling. But more importantly, I switched from rotating tumblers to vibrator tumblers. Once a specimen had been worked enough to repair rough spots, I'd get them into the vibrator tumblers for the final pre-polish and final polishing stages. I've found that vibrator tumblers are far less damaging and produce much more rapid results than rotating tumblers, the caveat being that its the initial prep work of grinding that greatly enhances the results and speed up the final polishing. In addition plastic pellets or other media can be used to cushion the stones and they also serve to help distribute the abrasives. One thing about vibrator tumblers, they tend not to wear or smooth irregularities in a rough specimen, unlike a rotating tumbler. Rather, vibrators tend to smooth out all the various shapes of a stone so that it will retain its basic form. So if you want to have significant removal of irregularities, a rotating tumbler will be better suited to that purpose, but you may also experience more fracturing, especially if you are tumbling large specimens. I always check over rough agates carefully before deciding what, if any treatment they will require. Sometimes on stones with a relatively smooth natural patina, all they need is a bit of mineral oil to enhance their features. Of course the various regions agates come from will obviously have an influence on the type of treatments they will be subjected to. Collectors of the famous Fairburn Agates and Lake superior agates very often leave agates with their natural patina, enhanced perhaps with a bit of oil. Mexican Laguna agates however will be best enjoyed by cutting and exposing their in internal feathres which would otherwise be concealed by their exterior husk. In any event, collectors will, with some time and experience find out what suits their tastes and one of the most fascinating aspect of every collection is their uniqueness. While some agates will share certain characteristics, they are like snow flakes -- no two are exactly the same.
As someone who doesn't have a lot of experience tumbling Lake Superior agates, I learned a thing or two here. As someone with a lot of tumbling experience in general, I agree with everything you said, Thomas.
I always love the jokes. You were brief, conscience and full of what you wanted to say. You should do a series on rock tumbling. Your a natural at public speaking. Keep the magic coming. Be happy, safe and stay healthy 😷⚒
Solid tips man! For folks that worry about ruining their agates, they can just use tons of media and shorten the first stage or start on stage 2, works great! Mr. Wil Bond likes to fill the druzy pockets with silicone before tumbling with excellent results!
That is some really helpful and interesting information about the "magates"! I picked up way too many of those in my 1st attempts at finding agates. Then after actually finding "real" agates I believed, until seeing your video this morning, that they would all be driveway gravel as soon as the snow melts. But NOW.... Oh, the possibilities! Maybe they have some hidden beauty. I'm going to go pick out a few similar looking ones to those you showed and throw them in the tumbler now! Thank you!
Narrative is class A. Your choice of words and the phrasing’s are informative plus being entertaining. Good competition for Rob. Now you need to work on your juggling. 😁
I think Thomas is putting me to shame with his scripts. I tend to make outlines or nothing at all. I need to start taking notes and learning from Thomas.
I do tumbler and polish lakers along with chert, jasper, and sometimes quartz. Great tips on which types to avoid tumbling, running a cleaning cycle in between stages, having some sort of media wether it's ceramic or plastic beads helps to reduce bruising, and the brand and quality of the pre polish and polish makes a difference.
@@99Rockhounding I was using grit from Nat Geo, and aluminum oxide for a final polish. I finally switched to grit from The Rock Shed, the difference is like night and day.
Hello great video. I live in Texas and don't find many agates where I live. The ground here is mostly iron oxide. Hematite which can be beautiful. The road I live off is brought in from some other place. It seems to be mostly Flint. I am tumbling my very 1st batch. I took a look to see if I needed to keep on with stage 1. I was very pleasantly surprised to find some milky quartz and a few other unidentified stones. These are all from the road out front. I have been collecting almost 5 years now off that road. The hematite I have not tried to tumble yet. Some of it will be next as I have found some really nice stones.
Thank you Thomas! I have been asking myself this question for a couple of weeks now. Good information to consider. I think I will try tumbling a few of my LSAs.
Excellent video Thomas! I appreciate all the information and tips. I have been pondering over what agates to tumble. You have some great looking agates. I like the moss agates. They all have their special beauty. I'm really thinking about making a tumbler too. I have my Lortone but would like to have more barrels going. Have a great Sunday!
Excellent growth! I can hear in your voice the comfortability and confidence building from your "six months", it's a good look. The agates are fantastic. Have you tried or do you want to try faucets on some of the agates? Some of the chipped mossy like patterns and banding on the smaller ones may yield surprises still. Really well done.
* Thanks, Very interesting & Informative.. Liked seeing the examples. Enjoyed the tumblers as well. Did you use sound abatement in more than just the small area you focused on? Will you build cabinet to house them like Rob did?? Very different from your standing in front of the camera. LOL
Thank you. The pink foam is actually to keep the tumbler from freezing. I built a big box for it, but I removed it for the video. I don’t plan on building a cabinet for it, because I like to watch it spin.
I have not tried a vibratory tumbler. I’d really like to though. The vibratory tumbler takes a lot less time than a rotary tumbler, and I’ve heard the shine is a little bit better. You can’t do a first stage in a vibratory tumbler though. Here’s a good video that Rob did comparing the 2: ruclips.net/video/Ur8HQ8BUyzY/видео.html
Hello, are you Thomas Thomson, The son of Thomas Thomson? Or maybe the Grandson of Thomas Thomson? Ok, I guess I liked that one! Thank you. God biess you and your family! Your friend and fan, Kevin
Awesome video Thomas! Thanks for sharing. Great work on the editing. Very informative, I learned a few things I didn't know, plus loved watching your tumble run in the background, I can see my spins too fast, my Leegol Electric pro dual tumbler. Thomas talking about Thomas Thompson's!
My Chicago Electric tumbler, which I think is the same as the Leegol spun pretty fast too, but I still got good results with it. When my tumbler is out of the warming box I could watch it spin all day lol.
Please don't worry about whether or not this video is too long. Everything you've shown us is beautiful, and personally, I like the off-beat ones the best. Thank you for this cool "lesson."
Very informative and well presented video young man. Plus the examples supporting the commentary were helpful.
The dry humor didn’t hurt.
Exceptionally helpful video! I have been cab wheeling some of my bevy of LSAs and just selected my first batch to tumble after I found an unintentionally included agate come out of a previous tumble.
I've been collecting gates, fossils and other minerals for almost 50 years. In my early years I tried out several types of tumblers and as mentioned, there are definitely pros and cons. I recall having some small, beautifully banded eye agates collected from local beaches. Having gone through the various grits to get to the polishing stage, not only had the eyes patterns nearly all been lost, but the colours were altering from blue tones to more reds and yellows as the exterior patina was worn away. The results were nicely polished stones, but the character and initial charm had changed dramatically and often, somewhat regrettably. In my location we have access to different beaches that produce both amygdaloid-types formed in basalt flows that were eroded out of their host rock and we have thunder- egg types that obviously come from an entirely different formation, but also related to volcanic processes. These latter types, when tumbled showed a frequent tendency to fractures and breaks as they are not as resistant as those formed in basalt. I quickly grew an appreciation for any agates that had an attractive natural exterior and gradually backed away from tumblers.
However, often agates will show rough irregularities or naturally occurring, unattractive breaks or rough surfaces full of cavities or other imperfection. These types of compromised specimens can be greatly improved and often made into excellent specimens with a little work. I started pre-working rough stones using various grades of diamond grind stones to do the rough preparations prior to tumbling. But more importantly, I switched from rotating tumblers to vibrator tumblers. Once a specimen had been worked enough to repair rough spots, I'd get them into the vibrator tumblers for the final pre-polish and final polishing stages. I've found that vibrator tumblers are far less damaging and produce much more rapid results than rotating tumblers, the caveat being that its the initial prep work of grinding that greatly enhances the results and speed up the final polishing. In addition plastic pellets or other media can be used to cushion the stones and they also serve to help distribute the abrasives.
One thing about vibrator tumblers, they tend not to wear or smooth irregularities in a rough specimen, unlike a rotating tumbler. Rather, vibrators tend to smooth out all the various shapes of a stone so that it will retain its basic form. So if you want to have significant removal of irregularities, a rotating tumbler will be better suited to that purpose, but you may also experience more fracturing, especially if you are tumbling large specimens.
I always check over rough agates carefully before deciding what, if any treatment they will require. Sometimes on stones with a relatively smooth natural patina, all they need is a bit of mineral oil to enhance their features. Of course the various regions agates come from will obviously have an influence on the type of treatments they will be subjected to. Collectors of the famous Fairburn Agates and Lake superior agates very often leave agates with their natural patina, enhanced perhaps with a bit of oil. Mexican Laguna agates however will be best enjoyed by cutting and exposing their in internal feathres which would otherwise be concealed by their exterior husk. In any event, collectors will, with some time and experience find out what suits their tastes and one of the most fascinating aspect of every collection is their uniqueness. While some agates will share certain characteristics, they are like snow flakes -- no two are exactly the same.
As someone who doesn't have a lot of experience tumbling Lake Superior agates, I learned a thing or two here. As someone with a lot of tumbling experience in general, I agree with everything you said, Thomas.
That's good that a pro agrees with what I said.
Great information Thomas! Love the bits of humor throughout too.😄 Thanks!✌🤠
I’m glad you enjoyed!
I always love the jokes. You were brief, conscience and full of what you wanted to say. You should do a series on rock tumbling. Your a natural at public speaking. Keep the magic coming. Be happy, safe and stay healthy 😷⚒
Thank you very much! I am working on a tutorial, but that’s still probably a few months out.
@@99Rockhounding little by little.
Solid tips man! For folks that worry about ruining their agates, they can just use tons of media and shorten the first stage or start on stage 2, works great! Mr. Wil Bond likes to fill the druzy pockets with silicone before tumbling with excellent results!
That's a good idea for the crystal pockets.
@@99Rockhounding what a great idea!
I really liked this video. Nice layout of your experiences.
Thank you!
First rate video. Great information. Narrative was informative and entertaining.
I’m glad. I tried to keep it as informative as I could while still being fun.
@@99Rockhounding nailed it!
What a great video! Some very good tips!!
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome vid man!! People will learn a bunch from this vid!! This vid is a great example of what RUclips was made for!! Love it!!
That was my hope, and it seems to be working. Thanks for watching!
Thank you I'm just getting started tumbling in Minnesota and was curious.
I’m working on a tutorial for how I go about tumbling my LSAs, so stay tuned for that!
That is some really helpful and interesting information about the "magates"! I picked up way too many of those in my 1st attempts at finding agates. Then after actually finding "real" agates I believed, until seeing your video this morning, that they would all be driveway gravel as soon as the snow melts. But NOW.... Oh, the possibilities! Maybe they have some hidden beauty. I'm going to go pick out a few similar looking ones to those you showed and throw them in the tumbler now! Thank you!
You never know!
Thank you for sharing your information on tumbling/not tumbling agates.
My pleasure! I hope you found it helpful!
Pretty awesome video - very informative. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed!
Narrative is class A. Your choice of words and the phrasing’s are informative plus being entertaining. Good competition for Rob. Now you need to work on your juggling. 😁
🤣I really enjoy writing scripts for these videos. I have a ways to go though before I catch up to Rob.
I think Thomas is putting me to shame with his scripts. I tend to make outlines or nothing at all. I need to start taking notes and learning from Thomas.
@@MichiganRocks I can't riff worth a darn though...
I do tumbler and polish lakers along with chert, jasper, and sometimes quartz. Great tips on which types to avoid tumbling, running a cleaning cycle in between stages, having some sort of media wether it's ceramic or plastic beads helps to reduce bruising, and the brand and quality of the pre polish and polish makes a difference.
For sure! I always run a burnishing stage between stages and use plenty of ceramics. I've only ever used grit from the Rock Shed or Kingsley North.
@@99Rockhounding I was using grit from Nat Geo, and aluminum oxide for a final polish. I finally switched to grit from The Rock Shed, the difference is like night and day.
Hello great video. I live in Texas and don't find many agates where I live. The ground here is mostly iron oxide. Hematite which can be beautiful. The road I live off is brought in from some other place. It seems to be mostly Flint. I am tumbling my very 1st batch. I took a look to see if I needed to keep on with stage 1. I was very pleasantly surprised to find some milky quartz and a few other unidentified stones. These are all from the road out front. I have been collecting almost 5 years now off that road. The hematite I have not tried to tumble yet. Some of it will be next as I have found some really nice stones.
I really like when the rocks I’m tumbling have iron in them. Some of them get really reflective and cool. Flint should polish up really nice.
@@99Rockhounding I check them and one is looking like caramel candy I was tempted to taste it 😅🙃☕❤
Great information! Thanks for sharing!!
Keep rockin!!👍😎
Thank you!
You have a good handle on agates nice work buddy.
Very beautiful video!! Thank you for sharing!!
Thank you for watching. Glad you enjoyed!
Great information. Thanks very much.
Glad you enjoyed!
Thank you Thomas! I have been asking myself this question for a couple of weeks now. Good information to consider. I think I will try tumbling a few of my LSAs.
It's a lot of fun! I'm really glad my video was helpful.
Excellent video Thomas! I appreciate all the information and tips. I have been pondering over what agates to tumble. You have some great looking agates. I like the moss agates. They all have their special beauty. I'm really thinking about making a tumbler too. I have my Lortone but would like to have more barrels going. Have a great Sunday!
One thing I learned, even after making my own, is you’ll never have enough barrels😂
@@99Rockhounding lol Thomas! 🤣
Thanks Thomas for sharing.
Thanks for watching.
Excellent growth! I can hear in your voice the comfortability and confidence building from your "six months", it's a good look. The agates are fantastic. Have you tried or do you want to try faucets on some of the agates? Some of the chipped mossy like patterns and banding on the smaller ones may yield surprises still. Really well done.
I think it would be pretty cool to try faceting, especially on things like binghamite.
* Thanks, Very interesting & Informative.. Liked seeing the examples. Enjoyed the tumblers as well. Did you use sound abatement in more than just the small area you focused on? Will you build cabinet to house them like Rob did?? Very different from your standing in front of the camera. LOL
Thank you. The pink foam is actually to keep the tumbler from freezing. I built a big box for it, but I removed it for the video. I don’t plan on building a cabinet for it, because I like to watch it spin.
Tumbling is like cutting your not always sure what the results will be, but it is usually fascinating and you want to do it more.
It's really addictive!
Great info! Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed!
Good video. 😎
Thank you!
Great video. Good content.
Glad you enjoyed👍
Do you have, or have you ever used, a vibratory tumbler? Just wanted to see what the differences might be. Thanks!
I have not tried a vibratory tumbler. I’d really like to though. The vibratory tumbler takes a lot less time than a rotary tumbler, and I’ve heard the shine is a little bit better. You can’t do a first stage in a vibratory tumbler though. Here’s a good video that Rob did comparing the 2: ruclips.net/video/Ur8HQ8BUyzY/видео.html
I only have a tumbler and can manually sand them. Oh, and a dremel.
Did you build your tumbler, and if so can you share how? Thanks!
Never mind. Just saw your video on building one. Cool!
Oh perfect lol I was just about to send a link.
Awesome...
Thanks!
Hello, are you Thomas Thomson, The son of Thomas Thomson? Or maybe the Grandson of Thomas Thomson? Ok, I guess I liked that one! Thank you. God biess you and your family! Your friend and fan, Kevin
Thanks Kevin! I had fun writing that one😂
Genial ✌️💎
Thank you!
Awesome video Thomas! Thanks for sharing. Great work on the editing. Very informative, I learned a few things I didn't know, plus loved watching your tumble run in the background, I can see my spins too fast, my Leegol Electric pro dual tumbler. Thomas talking about Thomas Thompson's!
My Chicago Electric tumbler, which I think is the same as the Leegol spun pretty fast too, but I still got good results with it. When my tumbler is out of the warming box I could watch it spin all day lol.
@@99Rockhounding Thats good to know, so I'm ok with what I have then. Thanks!