It's right there on I 40 and if I recall correctly there's like four or five different vendors there with acres and acres and acres of stuff palleted and ready to go.
It is a retail wholesale set up I'm sure.
What happened with us is we dropped in on a Sunday and got to follow a truck driver back into the mountains about twenty five miles to the mine. It was an adventure, a real deal adventure.
The one thing you must always keep in mind in those western states is so much of land is federal. And the last thing your attorney wants to hear from you is how all you did was pick up this rock and put it in your pocket or car. They'll hang you higher for that than if you were sniping at cars on the interstate.
You have to have a permit to remove a stick or a rock from federal land. I went to the Forest Service and they gave me a permit. It was after I'd paid my fee and was happier than a pup with two tails that I found out that permit was only good for one area. I went there and what it was debris from forest service constructions sites. There wasn't one rock I'd take home, not one.
But I was able to load up at the mine and use the receipt to show that I'd legally purchased the rocks from a licensed dealer.
The same thing goes for firewood. I loaded up with a cord of Pinon. Pinon in Dallas goes for four hundred plus at the right time of the year. I was trying to hammer the guy for a break from his sixty five a cord there in New Mexico. I explained I had cash and didn't need a receipt. He explained to me cash worked but I'd better reconsider that bit about the receipt. The same rules apply to the firewood that applies to the rocks. You get caught without the proper paperwork they confiscate the goods and you got serious legal problems.
As for working it. Is
here. Why I like it so much is they have not only the equipment but the consumables that you can't always seem to find at the places like Northern or TSC.
I have an IR T30 two stage five horse compressor at the shop. It works great for sandblasting small stuff. If you want to do more bigger stuff then I suggest finding a used construction compressor like they use for jackhammers. I borrow one occasionally.
I spent over three hundred dollars for my hood. It's a fresh air flow one. I highly recommend that expense. It only takes a minute for you to burn up all the oxygen in one of those non fresh air supplied ones. Then it gets real hot real quick and it isn't comfortable at all.
The one I got recommended at least another five horse compressor just to feed the hood. But being luckier than a pup with two mamas I found something better.
I had this spa blower sitting back there in a pile. Two hundred and twenty volts, noisy as the day is long, and I figured it it could make bubbles in a pool with people everywhere it could surely feed a hood. Then I dug out out the one inch hose that feeds air to my HVLP spray rig. We got it all together and I'm happier than a man has any right to be.
Now you need to go visit your local cemetary supply. They have a product called blast resist. Folks who etch glass also have it but their stuff is wussey, wussey, wussey.
Then what you do is you put your design on the blast resist. You glue the resist to your rock. You exacto knife your design out. And then you blast it with your sand blast nozzle.
This goes for etching glass, making granite markers, or carving sandstone.
If you look carefully at some of my stuff you'll see I've not only put a design in the sandstone, I've drilled it for being a planter. Yup, I'm a sick puppy and I don't want to get well.
The rock for my daughter's house was in a pile. I was down at my rock bud's place looking for that one rock that would say something to me. That particular one reached out and grabbed me because it had the outline of the eastern side of a map of Texas. A little freehanding with the old blaster and the rest of the map of Texas appeared. And more importantly I'd created a grin on my daughter's face that two dozen roses would never give.
As you're sitting there thinking about all the things you can do with this premise live a dream I have. I want to find someone with the money and the need for a rock tree planter. I'd like to make a wrought iron hand forged tree, say about six feet tall and five feet in circumference. Instead of steel leaves I'd like to do rocks, big rocks, say about the size of watermellons. And these rocks would be hollowed out so they'd be planters.
Yup, I think that'd be pretty. It'd be the only one. Surely that's worth something?