We had a great get-together here at the Chase Ranch on the 4th. While I had my smoker/grill fired up, I did some heat treating of rocks that Cowboy gave me back in December. I placed the rocks in play sand in roasting pans. I let the sand sit over night with a fan blowing over it to dry out the moisture.
On the morning of the 4th, I fired up the grill side of the smoker early with Charcoal. I put more sand on the top of the rocks and then placed them in the smoker. There the temperature rose from ambient (about 95 degrees) to over 250. It stayed there for several hours. When it came lunch time, I used the fire to cook up some burgers and brauts.
When I was done cooking, I built up the fire with wood and then placed the pans with the rocks directly on the grill rack above the fire. Since the thermometer is on the smoker side, I don't know the temperature in the grill/fire box, but I assume it's somewhere between 500 and 600 degrees. I kept the fire stoked for a couple of hours.
After cleaning up the firework debris the next morning,
I took the pans off the grill and pulled the rocks out of the sand. They were still warm. I only had one that blew off a small sliver but the rest survived and took the heat very well.
I ran some test flakes and rock that was once very difficult is now pretty easy to work. I was able to take some round nodules that were like bricks and run long flakes off and actually thin down some pretty nice preforms. The stuff that looked like root bear is actually pretty easy to work now too. All of the rocks took on a slight color change and is a little waxier.
Overall it was worth the effort.
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