Rock tumbling method and apparatus
AssigneeIdea Vault Holdings, Inc.
InventorsJoshua J Gedlick, Alexander Darin Smith, Jennifer Ann Hanson, Michael Edwin Munter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
After three or four abrasive rock tumbling steps with successively finer and finer adhesive, the rocks are tumbled with pieces of an elastomer, for example plastic foam. The plastic foam may be polyurethane foam. The result is a higher polish than could be achieved by prior abrasive and finishing approaches. A polishing compound may be embedded in the polyurethane foam. Advantages of doing this include that the user gets multiple polishings out of the material base, there is less breakage of the rocks during tumbling process, and the tumbling mix will not “sludge up” if the user were to let the barrel sit after tumbling.
Claims20
A method comprising the steps of:
- placing rocks, water, and abrasive of a first grit into a first container;
- operating the first container for a period of time of at least one day, thereby moving the rocks, thereby yielding first resulting rocks that have reached a first processing state;
- placing some of the first resulting rocks, along with water and abrasive of a second grit into a second container, the abrasive of the second grit being finer than the abrasive of the first grit;
- operating the second container for a period of time of at least one day, thereby moving the rocks, thereby yielding second resulting rocks that have reached a second processing state;
- placing some of the second resulting rocks along with water and abrasive of a third grit into a third container, the abrasive of the third grit being finer than the abrasive of the second grit;
- operating the third container for a period of time of at least one day, thereby moving the rocks, thereby yielding third resulting rocks that have reached a third processing state;
- placing some of the third resulting rocks, along with pieces of an elastomer embedded with a polishing compound, into a fourth container;
- operating the fourth container for a period of time of at least one day, thereby moving the rocks, thereby yielding final resulting rocks that have reached a final processing state;
- wherein the pieces of an elastomer are monolithic pieces of elastomer foam, the pieces of elastomer foam having a size in the range of 0.8 cubic centimeters to 8 cubic centimeters, the pieces of elastomer foam further having a durometer value in the range of 0 to 80 Shore00 Durometer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.