Follow me on my paleontology adventures while I go fossil hunting, then watch how I prep and repair them for display.
I have been fascinated by dinosaurs and fossils as far back I can remember. I read every library book I could find, visited every rock shop I passed (if I could convince my parents to stop) and dragged home every rock if I thought it might have a fossil. That passion never left, but now I can actually pursue that dream a little. Along with paleontology, I love everything outdoors... hiking, camping, exploring, Jeeping, gold mining, bottle digging, metal detecting, and more.
If you like what you see, please like the videos and subscribe to my channel. I love answering questions, and try to respond to all. If you have a question about any place I visit, types of fossil I collect, or tools and techniques for prepping, please be sure to comment.
then you would be pushing air top to bottom. moisture settles, so its better to have it enter low and work its way up through the desiccant. gives you a more defined line of remaining dry desiccant.
Hey, I’m going up to Seymour for some fossil hunting real soon, are the Cradock Bone Beds open to the public? Asking because I would love to go hunting there.
sorry, no. That is a private ranch and only the museum has access. Everything around there is private land, so I dont think you'll find any place you can hunt on. You could contact the museum about becoming a volunteer field worker. Dont know if that could work for you or not.
I’ve found a few sites of my own. Wotton-Under-Edge has a quarry dump which is great for echinoids, and keynsham has the best ammonites I’ve yet come across.
That’s a great idea; very resourceful and inventive. I wondered why you didn’t just use a cylinder of aluminium mesh at the bottom? Because of turbulence I suspect your small holes may well create a restriction, even if their combined area is greater than 3/8”. Also, at the top, it looked as though the 3/4” pipe might well fit over the lid duct without a fitting. Either that or perhaps the fitting could do with bushing. Finally, I found myself unable to spend 22 minutes watching this without skipping forward. I found the pace to be too slow for me, excruciatingly so at times. As an exercise, why not try editing that down to a six minute video and see what you end up with? Assembly sections after explaining, if included, are often better played at a faster speed. Feedback is well intentioned. Nice job. 👍
Its either the deposition environment that didnt allow the sutures to fossilize well, or you may be seeing mostly living chambers, which dont have any sutures.
I’ve made one of these out of A execlon 4000 clear PVC and 3” diameter PVC. But I like the idea of using an off the shelf products. So I’m making one for my airbrush booth. My only concern is getting the length of the PVC exact. There’s an O ring inside the screw on top. So both gasket and o ring must be compressed. The desiccant should be first, followed by a particulate filter and coalescing filter. You can put your pressure regulator at the end or before. But some of these filters require a minimum psi to work so I put the regulator after everything.
I’ve made one of these out of A execlon 4000 clear PVC and 3” diameter PVC. But I like the idea of using an off the shelf products. So I’m making one for my airbrush booth. My only concern is getting the length of the PVC exact. There’s an O ring inside the screw on top. So both gasket and o ring must be compressed.
That's an easy to make interesting design, I,ll have to add one of those in. Id use a collesiong filter from tip tools before the dryer to save on the beads. Their metal water trap pipe setup is easy to make and works very well, i never even get moisture in the initial water trap.
thank you catching that! I just added it to the description. Its not a amazon item, but I threw away several of those and bought this one. I've been very happy with it. No issues with leaking, out-of-spec port threads here.
Talk about fun digging! We brought back almost 300 pounds of ammonites from the lake. You’re so right about the hike. 2.3 miles along the shore. Canoeing is our next trip.
A good friend of mine worked in the Texas Red Bed for his master degree in geology. He worked on the Alferd Romer Site 13, 7 miles west of Archer, Texas, on US 210.. He found a 60% complete Dimetrodon skelton and a partial Eryops skull in 1989. On the clay where he was working, he even found the tin fiol from the pack of cigarettes that Romer was smoking from 1940.
Many scientific papers on new fossil and specimens have the location details on the find. Many even have detailed maps. Just look up different fossil species names on google and then scroll down the various references. Many of these references are online if you really expand your search using the authors name and date as well. Some sites are destroyed, so they may no longer produce fossils and may even be under buildings once the fossils were exhausted.
Another question: In rejuvenating my silica gel, which is better: The vacuum chamber, or the oven? If the vacuum is fine, I need only to draw that in the housing, and need not even remove the silica gel from it.
I like your solution. I went parallel, but instead of your cannister, I went with a 4.5" x 20" " Whole House " housing I got at Home Depot. Additionally, I discovered a re-fillable cartridge, Hydronix EC-4520W White Empty Water Filter Cartridge Durable Construction for Pre Post, Fits Standard Housings 4.5" x 20" at Amazon for $20.00, which I intend to fill with bulk silica gel beads. Now, I like your PVC solution a bit better as it directs the airflow all the way to the bottom of the column, and it has no other route than to completely pass through the entire charge of desiccant media. One question: Is the silica gel the best? There are others. And Grainger has it in bulk for cheap. Thanks! Mark
@@TheFossilFiend Cool man. Ok, just got the refillable cartridge in, and much to my surprise, it also delivers to the bottom of the column forcing total filtration all the way up the media, just like yours.
@@TheFossilFiend and what about clear vs. Blue ?? If I need to get clear I will . Amazon was over $50 plus wrench . I paid $16 or $19 with wrench at Menards - clearance And thank you so very much for your reply
@jeffreyeiford2750 did you make sure to read the pressure rating? The specific model I use and link to in the description is rated for 120 or 125 which gives a good safety margin above my working pressure.
@@TheFossilFiend I will purchase the one you listed and here is the set up I bought before I saw your video If I can figure out how to post it Ha ha It’s a NANPU 3/8 NPT Air DRYING SYSTEM
The whole point of the clear container is that you can see when you need to change the media. If you are going blind, then you might as well make it from a steel tube and eliminate the weakness of using a plastic.
The problem with compressed gas is that it expands explosively when suddenly released. Water filters are designed for water under pressure. If they fail it is not a problem because the water is not compressed and the pressure is relieved instantly. Your life and health are precious. Rebuild this with a real pressure vessel.
you're half right. Gases compress but they DO NOT "violently" expand. Thats the nature of the vessel. Youre assuming that a vessel created to with 125psi as a constant (plus engineering safety percentage) is not capable of handling 80psi as an occasional pressure. PLease do not build this desiccant filter. I even state that in the beginning of the video. Informational purposes only.
Very glad you were not standing beside it. I feel like the system is still a sound idea though. And adding 'containment' may be easy as a ballistic cordura wrap. Just saying. Probably a good idea as a safety measure.
How did this work out? I'm looking for a water separator/drier for an HVLP paint gun. For probably 15-45 minutes of compressor run time (@5hp, 9cfm/40psi, 7cfm/90psi). Which seems well below your mentioned weeks/months between servicing it. (I'd be happy if I could get 1-2 days of painting between drying the desiccant; I paint very infrequently) Any feeling on it it'd be good enough for painting? I'm not sure if desiccant absorbs quickly enough to dry constant flowing air? But this is really appealing.
The fossils are fascinating enough, but do you find Native American artifacts there too? Obviously they wouldn't come from the same level but they could be mixed at the bottom or maybe natives dropped stuff on top of layers with fossils. It looks like a good place to find arrow heads and stuff. I'd like to try metal detecting there for gold or newer artifacts.
@@TheFossilFiend It would be awesome to try metal detectors there but I'm in VA and can't get out there. But you should definitely try. Get a good machine that has numbers that give you an idea of what you found and different tones for different metals. And you need a good pinpointer detector too, I like the orange Garretts. You could find all kinds of treasure there.
@@TheFossilFiend no, I'm not familiar with that channel either. I just found your content. My brother is into metal detectors and treasure hunting in Florida and he's got good machines. I just have cheap stuff for now. I'll check out the other channel.
