So today I made another member of the Stone Age, in Neolythic Petroglyphic. You’ll notice every key is marked, but perhaps not with the markings one would expect 
And it’s heavy. Solid. Perhaps a tad heavier than Pebbles and BamBam turned out, but I’m not sure. Soon as it’s all dried and settled, I’m going to plug her in and take her for a test-type.
The latest in my Stoneage Keyboards, as you can see, this one has some lables on a few of the more important function keys. I’m experimenting in marking some keys for those who truly believe they can’t use a keyboard without using the Hunt and Peck method.
This keyboard is composed of 104 various Jaspers, cut into relatively square shapes then tumbled until polished. It works great, and feels natural due to the flatness and relatively uniform shape of the keys.
Unfortunately, while I’ve had several promises of donated keyboards, no one has come through as of yet. So in order to make these keyboards, I’m having to buy brand new ones – which will increase the selling price.
Every time you open up the tumbler to clean and inspect the rocks, be it going to the next stage in tumbling, repeating that same stage for another week, or bringing them out of polish for the final time, it’s like opening presents at Christmas.
Sure, you know what you put IN the tumblers, so it’s not such a surprise you don’t know what you’re going to see, but how they look is almost always a surprise. And with two twelve pound tumblers running almost all the time, I get that excited feeling of discovery almost every weekend of the year.
Yes, I’m lax in taking and posting photos, so I’ll try to fix that this weekend during the cleaning. But the fun part really takes on meaning during Stage 1. That’s when you’ve put rough rock, or rough cut freeforms into the tumblers for their first week. This is when the shaping happens, when you find amazing color coming through that you didn’t even know was hidden inside.
Right now, I have one tumbler filled with beach rocks gathered at Fort Warden in Port Townsend, WA. There’s some beach jade, and a few jaspers, but for the most part it’s full of rock that caught my eye. When tumbling beach rock that’s already mostly rounded, you don’t always have to do more than a cursory one-week stint in stage 1. And in the past, that’s what I’ve always done.
But a few weeks go, at a rock show in Everett, I found some beach rocks tumbled to such an amazing shine, my previous tumbles were put to shame! These babies were glistening! They were amazing. And the only thing I can fathom they did that I haven’t done was be more patient. So this time, since it’s still winter and too cold to spend much time cutting in the garage, I’ve decided to try my best to replicate that shine.
So these rocks are back in stage 1 for a second week. Already the colors and patterns coming out are breathtaking. And the second tumbler, filled with sliced Brazilian agates and cut freeforms also put me in awe. We did some cutting last month and had to set the forms aside because there weren’t enough to fill a tumbler – and in that time, I’d completely forgotten what was there. So, when I had the Brazilians ready to go and needed to fill the tumbler a bit more, I put these cuts in with them.
Sunday afternoon was Christmas all over again! Finding cuts in the slurry that I hadn’t remembered, seeing colors and patterns that I’d forgotten all about – it’s hard to describe. Suffice it to say, I saw quite a few pendant-potentials in there that won’t be put up for sale, but they’ll be available for viewing around my neck!
So my sister and I went to a rock show in Everett on Saturday – a two-hour drive on a BEAUTIFUL sunny Saturday, it was fantastic. We got up early to get to the show as soon as it opened, and beat the traffic, which put us in town 45 minutes early. Found a Starbucks and took a seat outside – what a beautiful day ! The sun was out, the sky was clear, and it got all the way up to 54F.
Felt like spring.
Not only that, but we were treated to a rock show, where we bought, among other things, these lovely slabs:
a beautiful piece of Ocean Jasper.
I can honestly say I don’t know the name of this one, but the reds are just amazing.
a lovely piece of Rhodochrosite (my sister plans to cut some hearts out of this beauty)
And some of my favorite – Mexican Crazy Lace Agate.
So in another week or so, if we can get lucky and have another warm Saturday in the not too distant future, we’re looking at a fun day of cutting these slabs into freeforms. The tumbler’s are running now with a batch of Brazillian Agates and a load of pretty amazing beach finds. All in all, a lovely rock hobby weekend 
So I was handed two used keyboards over the weekend, and had a double bonus – I got to meet a fellow rock hound who lives nearby, named Woody. What a fantastic man! We talked rocks and rock hounding, then he graciously agreed to take a couple of tubs-worth of my rough that was too hard to my little baby saw to cut, and he’s going to slab them for me.
In the rock world, this is a big deal. I’ve asked him to keep for himself as much as he wants, I’m just thrilled to be able to get some of this stuff slabbed up. To those of you who have no idea what I mean – he’s taking rough chunks of agates and jaspers and cutting them into thin slices, which I can then cut into shapes for the tumbler.
I have a saw, but it’s a baby compared to the big boys, and just can’t handle some of the harder, larger rough. My best work is done with slabs, but sometimes I just can’t resist picking up a big chunk of pretty.
So anyway, work on the keyboards is moving forward. These two I had donated to the cause over the weekend needed cleaning (good God, how people live!) In fact, when I started popping off the keys I realized they had to be scrubbed, so I was forced to put aside my fear of dismantling these things – and dismantle them. I took them both apart and scrubbed the cases with soap and hot water, then disinfectant.
I’m struggling with a way to cover the backs of the cases, the inside portion behind the keys, but I still have a few methods to try – work on that progresses. Pebbles and BamBam was shipped to my beta tester, and hopefully will arrive by the end of this week, and I have a promise of more keyboards coming in the mail.
This week I should have photos of an Ice Age keyboard, and possibly a Bronze Age, if not another Stone Age. And one of these days I’m going to take a week off of work just to sit and build keyboards !
Well not literally, it’s not.
I’ve been experimenting with ideas for backing the keys, since even with rocks on the key tops, you can still see quite a bit of the ugly plastic underbelly of these keyboards, and that’s just unsightly. One of my brilliant-yet-oddly-stupid ideas was to cut the metal mesh you can buy in copper, gold and silver colors. It seemed smart, because I could lay the mesh over the keyboard and easily mark the squares for the key openings, then snip those sections out.
They don’t make bandaid boxes that big.
And being a writer, I need these fingers in working order. So that went right out, and I thought to myself, “Hey, self, you’ve always been curious about that liquid epoxy resin, how’s about you try that?”
Well last night I did try that, and it’s disgusting! You mix equal parts of this crap with this other crap, then it pours way too fast to control, and leaks through the innards of the keyboard through spaces you swore weren’t even there when you checked first. Not to mention the 72 hour curing time AND the fact that if you screwed up in the first place, it will never, ever cure from the sickly sticky stinky goo of this morning to a nice solid hard clear shiny surface.
So poop.
I’m back to the cave walls with my marking rock. I believe I’ll try the steampunk method of black felt, and see if that gives the backgroud at least a solid, black surface. If I can just eliminate the sight of the ugly plastic bits, I might be happy. And I’m meeting someone at Starbucks this Saturday to pick up a donated keyboard – then I have supplies for making a Stone Age, and Ice Age and either an Industrial Age or Bronze Age keyboard next. And I’ve had some emailed promises of keyboards to come in the next few weeks, so I’m pretty stoked.
Next weekend my sister and I are going rock hounding on the Hoh river, and the weekend after that is a rock show in Edmonds (or Bellevue somewhere) so I’ll be giddy and posting photos of the slabs I’m buying. I have a lady lined up to sell me a full bucket of Brazillian rough slabs at $4.00/pound which is amazing. I’m all geeked-out over that.
I’m all geeked out over next weekend’s trip up the Hoh river, with a stop at Ruby Beach where the flat skipping stones breed like bunnies. They don’t polish, but they’ll make an amazing Cave Man model of Stone Age Keyboard
So today saw the efforts of my first serious attempt at a complete prototype Stone Age keyboard – this particular model I’m dubbing Pebbles and Bam Bam. It’ll be obvious in a few minutes.
When I first got this wild notion, my plan was to use slabs, cut to shape and polished, giving the typist a flat surface on which to type, while also making it very unique and interesting. And while that is still my plan, there’s an aspect to the rock hobby that still frustrates me.
Patience.
The first thing you learn when you delve into rock polishing, is patience. And it’s a lesson I struggle with in life constantly. You see, in order to get that lovely polished shine on a rock – if you’re using the rotary tumble method as opposed to the vibratory or flat lap method which I’ll talk about another day – what’s required is a minimum of 4 weeks worth of time.
First, assuming you have a tumbler, you load it up with rough (non-polished) rocks, then add Stage 1 grit which is a 60/90 roughness of silicone carbide, add water and turn it on. Then wait.
For 7 days, you wait.
At the end of that 7 days, you clean those rocks meticulously and with great care, in order to rid them completely of that grit. Then, if you’ve achieved a shape you’re pleased with, you move on to stage 2 and repeat step 1 using a 120/220 roughness of grit. BUT – if you’re not pleased yet, you repeat stage 1.
Now wait another 7 days. Repeat the rinsing, study your rocks, determine your level of happiness, and move on to stage 3. Using an even finer grit, 600 roughness. Go find something to do for 7 days, then come back and check them out. How happy are you? How shaped are they, how round, how smooth . . . these all determine if you can advance.
To the Polish stage. 7 days worth of tumbling with a fine Aluminum Oxide polish.
So, providing you’re not bored to tears and have wandered off like a homeless man on crack – 4 stages of 7-day tumbling give you lovely, incredible, shiny, smooth rocks. What I was hoping to do, in order to build a prototype of the Stone Age Keyboard we all had in mind, was to use some polished pieces I have lying around here. Of course none of them were a proper size, so I deemed it a smart idea to cut them – which my sister did for me today. Unfortunately – while I was willing to use them as-is, my sister wisely said to me:
“Don’t be daft, you idiot. They need to be tumbled again to smooth out these rough edges.”
So, as it happens I had a batch of Brazilian Agates ready for stage 3 – so I plopped these key pieces in there. Being already polished and lovely, dropping them into Stage 3 will give just enough friction and rough handling to put a smoother edge on the freshly cut rough bits, then a quick dip in polish and we’ll be good to go!
In the meantime, though, since I struggle with patience, I decided to make Pebbles and Bam Bam.
It took exactly 2 hours to cut all the keys, and my finger tips are killing me! Holding that stem is difficult, at best, and after about half of them the forefinger and thumb tips were screaming out with pain. Bandaids helped, and they’re not damaged, mind you, just sore. But this is what they produced:
Ugly, ain’t it? The keys were easier to cut this time, since I figured out what I was doing.
then it took some swearing, a pair of pliers, and finally putting on my glasses to realize there really IS a tiny notch on the keys that dictates how they can go back down Took me some time, and I don’t mind admiting I was getting frustrated before I figured that out. Once I did, the keys went back down easily and with little effort.
Now for the Pebbles:
This is the 10-key section of the keyboard. These rocks have been glued down using the GE Window and Door Sealant II, clear. It’s nice stuff, but takes a bit of time to dry, so putting the keyboard together will take a while. My only concern is the ugly bits beneath and behind the keys. I have a few notions of what to do there, but will have to wait and see how this keyboard looks when completed.
So, that’s where I stand now. Pebbles and Bam Bam will be done by tomorrow, then I can test it out, see how weird it is to actually type on. And this week, while we wait for the other rocks to tumble, I’ll talk about rocks and tumbling and such and what not.
Rock On!
you may be asking.
Well, it’s my newest blog – where I can blab for hours about rock hounding, rock polishing, rock drilling, rock cutting, rock, rock, and more rock. Oh, and this is where I’ll be going on and on about a new venture I’m calling Keyboards for all Ages.
“The hell is that, anyhow?”
Well, if you were followin’ my experiments on my other blog: mymidnightmuse.wordpress.com you saw the beginnings of a really crazy idea I’ve hatched, and nurtured thanks to a couple of friends of mine (Pete Tzinski and Lori Basiewicz ) who have been more than patient in tolerating a wild notion I call the Stone Age Keyboard. I got this idea while pineing away over a design called the Steampunk Keyboard, then this and that happened, yada yada yada, ipso facto I came up with my own Caveman take. There was a false start, I admit, when I tried using a microsoft natural ergonomic keyboard – which come to find out most normal human beings can’t tolerate – so I’ve gone back to the cave painting and I’m trying it out with those standard, plain Jane keyboards. I have a black one right now that’s serving as a prototype, and dang if it ain’t lookin’ good.
What I’m doing, for the new folk here, is taking a hobby of mind – the lapidary arts – and merging them with the modern computer keyboard. As a writer, I’m constantly typing on these things, much to my dismay, but recently a return to the old fashioned notion of writing novels using pen and paper appealed to me so much, this seemed like a natural extension. A way to blend the old with the new, keeping the whimsy and adding some art.
And I needed a blog to talk about rock polishing, collecting, hounding, and such and whatnot. When I got into this hobby, it immediately struck me how generous and big-hearted rockhounding folk are. They’ll bend over backwards to help a newbie learn the grit, and I haven’t met one yet who wasn’t perfectly willing to teach you every trick they know, and help you along the way. Even though I’ve only been in this hobby for 3 years now, I felt it was time to give back, such as I’m able, and try to show other newbies just how easy, fun, and amazingly addictive this hobby is.
Oh, and the keyboards – well what I mean by all Ages is pretty simple. I’ll be making several models, for several ages. We’ll have the Ice Age, the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Dark Ages, the Industrial Age, and I might even get crazy and do a New Age.
So stay tuned, I’m just getting my stones together, as it were. There will be much gabbering of rocks, much gabbering and crazy-talk about wild notions such as returning to the simple pleasures in life, and loads of photos as I perfect my Stone Age keyboard.
