Lol, I requested some samples of the Taft product a few weeks ago and never received them.
I followed up yesterday and the guy said the supply center was out of product until today because of similar requests to mine.
We may be small, but we pack a big punch.
I mentioned in my last email to him that if they or one of their retailers setup an online portal where we could buy 20-50# bags it would work out well.
Iām down to pick up a pallet as well. Not sure if that will help with the order
Iām actually close to the mine, shipping might be fairly easy. They just never send a small order OF A TONNE. Weāre small frys. Haha.
But if you want one I can probably procure it on the order
Maybe we just come together as a community and buy our own dirt pile and store on someoneās farm
@StoneD @Curious_Roberto @tweedledew @Dred_pirate @Tech1145 @anon86230761 @ScoobyDoobie
I am so pleased youāre all taking an interest and following through with experimentation! Honestly, the bentonite/montmorillonite RVM (gray, not so much red) granules from the Georgia mine and calcining facility works pretty well, also. The RVM gray removes a little less yield weight on the first pass, leaves a little more color in the product, and āfills up fasterā (stops decoloring after less resin treatment) than does the RVM white opaline, but it is still effective as long as it is pre-dried! Even the red stuff works, just about half as well as the gray. In fact, between these 3 Oil-Dri products (GA red bentonite LVM, GA gray montmorillonite RVM, and Taft, California white opaline RVM), or simple combinations of them and @Shadownaughtās clay products, the decoloring process is completely tunable to achieve a uniform or specifically graded color quality with almost any starting material!
For example, starting with old oxidized trim that has deepš©brown resin:
ā¦ If you want bright transparentšgold, use the dried opaline in 1:4 ratio with the dried gray bentonite (20% white, 80% gray).
ā¦ If you like amberš„µorange (or you just think tangerine tangie shatter would be cute), use the dried gray & red bentonite in 1:1 ratio (50% each).
ā¦ If you prefer rubyš¹red resin, try a bed of T41 1:1 under dried red bentonite.
ā¦ If you want waterš»white āsodaāglassā shatter, use a fresh batch of pure dried opaline.
If you have a deep purpleš¾black batch of biomass with a little extra moisture left in it, you might even be able to create a rare blueš„¶, tealš±, or limeš½ colored shatter with the right mix of media!
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Happy Hue Hacking, Homies! 
Hehe, some blue goo would pretty cool looking.
Thanks for the info @Photon_noir!
Actual question though, I do pretty small batches, so Iām drying powders now in the microwave. I do small bursts 15 seconds or so, until itās dry. Couple of minutes total usually does it for me.
Any reason to not do this with the opaline silica once I get my hands on some?
Fuck, good idea lol
Put a napkin or something over the powders if you microwave em. The dust flies up a little, the napkins helps a lot.
Whats up @Dred_pirate if you get the pallet I am up to grab some off of you as well. Thank you for spear heading this hunt for the good dirt!!
Iāll speak with him once I get back to work on Monday
didnāt see an answer for this: as long as your sand isnāt deep or you interrupt the cycle and mix to allow full removal of the acetoneā¦ you should be fine with that heat and residence time
Acetone forms an azeotrope with pentane wich helps in purging acetoneš
A few of us are discussing group order for PDX. Iāve held off as others finish their rep discussions, in order to not contaminate the process. Several of us have locations with freight receiving, but glad to defer if someone needing larger qty wants to take it in. Not trying to mark up, just cost plus shipping fob Portland somewhere.
Re: @Dred_pirate
Iāve already written over 1000 words, and posted pictures worth at least 1000 words, eachā¦ so how about a moving picture gif!
Okay, fineā¦ hereās an actual videoā¦
Opaline Silica Pumped Recirculation System
(Itās a Google Drive link, so open with Drive app or whateverā¦ I cannot upload it in any reasonable size or format. Itās a little over 16MB.)
Thatās gotta be at least a million words worth so far! Somehow, I still need to say more!
I think this was before @cyclopath had joined me at the facility. The initial test runs (at least 40) were actually completed using special semi-toroidal socks (curved half-circle tubes) of various nylon mesh (50, 25, & 10Ī¼m) that my lovely Amber had sewn for me! We filled them with (then dried gray or red montmorillonite) and inserted them into the boiling vessel through the bottom 6" cap. Two socks were arranged in a perfect circle, closest to the outer circumference of the floor of the boiler, so that the puddle of concentrated resin would not have socks in it, soaking up product! This required me to build a small canister filter for the pour spigot, since so much dust would get in the vessel! It was a serious chore. Naturally, we had to clean the floor of the vessel with ethanol every reload, and getting the sticky used socks out was no walk in the park. She made them socks really tough, though, thankfully! Needless to say, the workers were quite relieved when the āinfinity pump filter loopā* was installed.
*This was all before the term āCRCā had been coined, and really before folks were doing color remediation with @Shadownaughtās Carbon Chemistry clay products. I think he came out with his ābleaching clayā (now T41) right before I started doing the experiments with this material on the production sized skid. I had already been working on solving color and solidity (i.e. shatter hardness) issues for about a yearā¦ I was apparently the first person to call many suppliers about B80, fullerās earth, and other clay products with regard to treating cannabis extracts, much to my surprise!
I tried everything, as packaged and pre-dried (Btw, I love the microwave idea, but be careful with random dirt, as it may contain metals!), and drying the clays quickly proved to be advantageous for most things. I may have mentioned this, but drying improves both initial total color and longevity (number of runs or uses) from these clay materials for color remediationā¦ and it is essential to improving firmness of absolute texture, if that is a concern for you.
Iām tired, so TT;DW for now! 
additionally, can too much microwaving do any damage to the clay?
hello dred can i order a pallet with you??? how much does it cost?
Quite possible, donāt know if shipping would work out for that. Or if you want to throw down on the pallet, if thatās what you were saying
I have a pallet coming in 10 days
Wax are you breaking it down or just flexing 
If I can find some people that was to break a pallet with me I am game Iāll just charge cost of powder + shipping
down to throw inā¦but i am in socalā¦