Ok. Well a long slow cut would probably leave a much smoother finish, better appearance and less to polish.
Not that a tile saw couldn't, if you just sat there and in-fed it really slow.
Rocks
- Thread starter Makinchips208
- Start date
Not that a tile saw couldn't, if you just sat there and in-fed it really slow.
I woukd expect the cut finish would depend on the blade. Cut speed I have no idea. I don't know if my tile saw cuts faster because of rpm or what. Or if it wouldn't cut a rock that fast. All I know is someone else has it so I can't go home and try to chop a rock and see. Lol
Here was a rock i saw while scrambling some scree to summit She Devil.
Looks like a form of concrete. But im pretty sure there aint no concrete trucks gettin anywhere close. And no concrete on any of the summits.
Looks like a form of concrete. But im pretty sure there aint no concrete trucks gettin anywhere close. And no concrete on any of the summits.
Epoxy it to a tile or piece of plywood so it doesn't get ballistic.
So in the 'proper' spirit of this thread...
Not really a rock hound or collector... but here are some cool rocks (and related items) I've picked up on motorcycle trips, conflict archaeology gigs or that were gifted to me. Not really valuable, but priceless trip souvenirs and some cool gifts from friends!
Turquoise from a trip along Rt 66. The gold colered 'rock' at the back right is not a rock. It's a piece of a tire from Cadillac Ranch! The reddish rock is from way up in the Canadian Arctic from my Muskox hunt last year. Some of the oldest rock in the world from the Canadian Shield and under ice most of the time.
Fossil worm from a stream bed in the Candian Maritimes. Trip was around Gaspe and Bay of Fundy which is some really great fossil territory! Especially some of the cliffs on Bay of Fundy. Thousands of fossils along the beach at low tide. Could have filled a pickup truck!
Fossilized ferns, also from Bay of Fundy.
Fossil fish from Bay of Fundy cliffs.
Razor clam fossil from Cape Breton coastline.
"Legal" piece from gift shop at Petrified Forest. Picking up so much as a pebble in the Petrified Forest Monument will get you in deep, deep doo-doo! This came from the gift shop with a receipt! The guys at the checkpoints have no sense of humor that they are aware of if they think you might have picked up fossil wood!
Slice of a Triceratops Leg Bone... a gift from a buddy who picked it up in Madagascar. Great for resting hot pots on my dining table!
Piece of a flint nodule picked up in a corn field at the very top of the white cliffs of Dover in the UK. As I was picking it up, a Spitfire came roaring along the cliffs. The field is littered with nodules that were used to make the fine English Rifle flints that conquered the empire and lost the Revolutionary War. Most American flints were also imported, though, so won the war, too!
Not a rock... but a splinter off a German shell. I excavated this in the famous grotto where Audie Murphy and his squad were pinned down during the San Pietro Infine campaign. This was part of the expedition I went on in 2019 with Nat Geo and became the documentary "The Bloody Road to Rome" part of their "Buried Secrets of WW2" series on Nat. Geo. Somewhere there is a thread on that trip posted here. Finding the 'Grotto' was a major goal of the expedition. My buddy Jim, myself and a great English conflict archaeologist 'found it.' It wasn't that hard. There was a sign pointing to it placed by the Regimental Association. We considered that to be a 'clue.' And walked up to the path to the grotto! So much for being intrepid treasure hunters! We found a lot of material in there. Murphy wrote about being pinned down for a Hellish couple of days in his Memoir "To Hell and Back." Someday I'll get this framed with a picture and some other memorabilia.
So not much of a 'rock' guy. But rocks make great memories. Much better than your average gift shop schlock. You just can't carry too many of them on a bike or airline baggage!
Next trip includes a ride up Pike's Peak! I'll be bringing a rock down from there for sure!
Cheers,
Sirhr
Not really a rock hound or collector... but here are some cool rocks (and related items) I've picked up on motorcycle trips, conflict archaeology gigs or that were gifted to me. Not really valuable, but priceless trip souvenirs and some cool gifts from friends!
Turquoise from a trip along Rt 66. The gold colered 'rock' at the back right is not a rock. It's a piece of a tire from Cadillac Ranch! The reddish rock is from way up in the Canadian Arctic from my Muskox hunt last year. Some of the oldest rock in the world from the Canadian Shield and under ice most of the time.
Fossil worm from a stream bed in the Candian Maritimes. Trip was around Gaspe and Bay of Fundy which is some really great fossil territory! Especially some of the cliffs on Bay of Fundy. Thousands of fossils along the beach at low tide. Could have filled a pickup truck!
Fossilized ferns, also from Bay of Fundy.
Fossil fish from Bay of Fundy cliffs.
Razor clam fossil from Cape Breton coastline.
"Legal" piece from gift shop at Petrified Forest. Picking up so much as a pebble in the Petrified Forest Monument will get you in deep, deep doo-doo! This came from the gift shop with a receipt! The guys at the checkpoints have no sense of humor that they are aware of if they think you might have picked up fossil wood!
Slice of a Triceratops Leg Bone... a gift from a buddy who picked it up in Madagascar. Great for resting hot pots on my dining table!
Piece of a flint nodule picked up in a corn field at the very top of the white cliffs of Dover in the UK. As I was picking it up, a Spitfire came roaring along the cliffs. The field is littered with nodules that were used to make the fine English Rifle flints that conquered the empire and lost the Revolutionary War. Most American flints were also imported, though, so won the war, too!
Not a rock... but a splinter off a German shell. I excavated this in the famous grotto where Audie Murphy and his squad were pinned down during the San Pietro Infine campaign. This was part of the expedition I went on in 2019 with Nat Geo and became the documentary "The Bloody Road to Rome" part of their "Buried Secrets of WW2" series on Nat. Geo. Somewhere there is a thread on that trip posted here. Finding the 'Grotto' was a major goal of the expedition. My buddy Jim, myself and a great English conflict archaeologist 'found it.' It wasn't that hard. There was a sign pointing to it placed by the Regimental Association. We considered that to be a 'clue.' And walked up to the path to the grotto! So much for being intrepid treasure hunters! We found a lot of material in there. Murphy wrote about being pinned down for a Hellish couple of days in his Memoir "To Hell and Back." Someday I'll get this framed with a picture and some other memorabilia.
So not much of a 'rock' guy. But rocks make great memories. Much better than your average gift shop schlock. You just can't carry too many of them on a bike or airline baggage!
Next trip includes a ride up Pike's Peak! I'll be bringing a rock down from there for sure!
Cheers,
Sirhr
I picked up a head-sized jet black rock on a hike a while back. Left it on a room mate's desk with a post-it note saying "Is this petrified wood?" Three days later it showed up on my desk, cut in half (across the grain), with a note that simply said "yes."
Here's a snap shot of petrified varves ...
Here's a snap shot of petrified varves ...
Awesome stuff! The turquoise in the first pic is that same Battle Mountain #8 mine In Nevada. I’d like to turn that bright green one into some cabuchons for jewelry. We sold a pair of earrings to a guy last December and he ordered a matching bracelet- I said ok thinking that bright green would be easy to find again. It wasn’t. Took like 4 months to find it again and paid through the nose for a stone. He picked the bracelet up , then ordered a matching necklace that was almost as tough to find.
Tile saws run 2x the RPMs as a typical lapidary saw. Faster speeds can equal more fracturing, blade and material dependent of course, but most rock hounds are used to everything being slow to process anyhow.
Pretty sure I got that green piece on a bike trip through the Sierras and Reno/Trukee/Sequoia/Yosemite.... was an epic ride! Caught Death Valley after a 'rare' rainstorm and when I rode through, everything was blooming. Rangers on the way in said I was 'in for a treat.' Both because the weather was pretty cool and because everything was going to bloom. He wasn't wrong! I got a huge alabaster carved bear on that trip, too. But had that shipped! Weighs about 30 pounds!
I also collect these 'rocks' and have quite a collection of them at this point. Many from the Eschalook family. They do amazing hunting scenes from the Canadian Inuit.
This one came from my muskox hunt last year.
Aibilie Eschalook
Random (with the Eschalook to the right of the seal.
Eschalook family.
Random
A little carved Ptarmagon in front, A modern inuit with his shotgun that I got at a Gallery in Quebec City while on my Labrador motorcycle trip. Can't remember the artist. And a very cool raven (carved from tusk) that I found in a random junk shop in Kansas this past spring! Stole it for a hundred bucks!
Technically, they are (mostly) rocks, too! Soapstone carvings. Lovely things! Also make great trip souvenirs from rides and trips up North!
Sirhr
Of course, the biggest rock in my "collection" is this guy I put up in my upper pasture... dug into a piece of ledge that I was always hitting with my mower. So sunk a foundation in it and put up a big Glooskap! Stones came out of my fields. Can't waste stones like that!
Tractor for scale....
There is a thread somewhere here from when I built it in summer 2019... Stands almost 20 feet tall from the base.... Copper lightning rod on top.
Cheers,
Sirhr
Tractor for scale....
There is a thread somewhere here from when I built it in summer 2019... Stands almost 20 feet tall from the base.... Copper lightning rod on top.
Cheers,
Sirhr
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As a stonemasonry contractor I have handled, literally, hundreds of tons of rocks. Had quite a collection, most all of which has gotten away. When I hiked the Kaibab Trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I left my clothes and a lot of gear and backpacked out some billion year old rocks. (That was 60 years ago, if any park cops are reading). Only ones I've hung on to are below. The top one is from the state of Guerrero in south west Mexico. I was driving along and there's a guy on the side of the road with huge piles or rock. Turns out he was a mason as well and the piles were for a big job he had coming up. We talked shop for a bit then he gave me this very rare one.
This one I picked up in a field in San Saba Texas while I was waiting my turn at shooting to a mile. The color doesnt really show, iots kind of blue.
This one I picked up in a field in San Saba Texas while I was waiting my turn at shooting to a mile. The color doesnt really show, iots kind of blue.
Cool rock, bro. That looks like conglomerate. I have a very small stone on my desk that looks similar. Also, on our family vacation to Oregon last year we found some massive rocks that looked like concrete, kind of like your stone there.
I tried my metal cutting chop saw using a diamond masonry blade and it doesn't work well for harder rock, like that malapai for example (landscaping project), and cutting dry/no water it produces enough heat to turn the cutting area into molten lava so it takes too long.
I scrapped that project because I didn't want to spend the money on a water fed tile or rock cutting saw. I almost should buy one because I have enough of these rocks on my property, once cut into blocks, to build a small house with them, lol.
A lot of the rocks here came from a single trip that had rocks that were filled with these rugosa(?) corals, with this one being a flattened example. I'm not exactly sure if these are from Louisiana rock but I find loose rugosa corals pretty often and to me they look the same as these.
Here's one of several chunks of lapis lazuli I got from the bazaar at Bagram.
Most of mine are in storage at the moment, but I have been picking up rocks as long as I can remember.
I have at least one from every property I have hunted and every river I have fished in the last 30+ years.
I have at least one from every property I have hunted and every river I have fished in the last 30+ years.
My rock collection. And this isn’t all of it. I have 200-300pounds of dinosaur bone, maybe more. 
. I have chrysocolla, agates, variscites, jaspers, all kinds of stuff. Always looking for more. I cut and polish rocks, and just getting into the silversmithing. I’m always looking for more. We just moved, so all my rocks, polishers, saws, everything, are all packed up. I have to build a new shop, and at the rate it’s going, it may be a year before that happens.
. I have chrysocolla, agates, variscites, jaspers, all kinds of stuff. Always looking for more. I cut and polish rocks, and just getting into the silversmithing. I’m always looking for more. We just moved, so all my rocks, polishers, saws, everything, are all packed up. I have to build a new shop, and at the rate it’s going, it may be a year before that happens. Shoulda tagged you earlier. Those are awesome!My rock collection. And this isn’t all of it. I have 200-300pounds of dinosaur bone, maybe more.
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- Nov 3, 2010
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Some of my work;
This looks like common Opal. I’ve seen some like this in norther Nevada, at the Virgin Valley Mines. If this, it may fluoresce, if you have a UV light.
This looks like common Opal. I’ve seen some like this in norther Nevada, at the Virgin Valley Mines. If this, it may fluoresce, if you have a UV light.
Thanks. I love talking rocks.
I’ll post some of my cabs, and the three pieces I’ve set in silver.
