Rockin the Rockies

Rockin the Rockies
Rock Hounding

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Petrified wood and Tumbling

Refer back to 03/04/2011 "An adventure to the Denver Basin looking for petrified wood."  In the winter I clean, examine and tumble specimens found over the warmer months. I finally got around to tumbling some of the petrified wood I collected last March and if I may say so I think they look pretty good.  My friend helped me build a tumbler for about $50 (Bearings, used motor,scrap wood and belts).  While I've read some people use old paint cans and other barrels to use as tumbling barrels, I decided to buy a rubber barrel (another $50). No sense in doing all the work of collecting, storing and polishing only to have a crummy barrel mess everything up.  Anyway here is a picture of some wood that went through 4 of the 5 tumbling stages.  A burnishing step with soap flakes is described as a finishing step, but I'm not sure I need to.  Stones look fine as they are.
Red, Yellow, Black and White all good looking stones

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