Great seeing some of the results in this group, and will probably be buying first tumbler in the next week or so (UK)

Looking for inspiration as to what to do when fully polished, do you display or make into jewellery ?

Edit: ANSWERED

Hey all, so after a lot of research, I'm trying adventurine. I know it bruises easily, so on the advice of another guy here (sorry, I don't remember the name but I know you're a Top 1%er), I'm running very slow, about 24 rpm in a 2.5lb barrel that was a touch over 3/4 full when I started. I started with 2 tablespoons of stage 1 grit. After a week I rinsed and cleaned everything and added 2 tablespoon fresh grit again (had to because I used about a quarter cup of aquarium gravel to help cushion things and the paint ground off the gravel and made the water nothing but bubbles). Fast forward 1 week and I did the same thing again. Now the paint is mostly all gone from the gravel and I've ran 2 weeks, each week being fresh water and grit. THEN I put my back out, really bad... Like it's been 3 weeks now and I can still hardly bend over or stand for more than a couple minutes. So about half way thru this 3 week period, I did manage to open the barrel up... But I was already hurting so bad that I just dumped 1 more tablespoon of grit in and closed it back up. It's been running this entire time. Tonight I was finally able to stand long enough to check them properly. There's still a TON of grit in the tumbler. I'm sure I could have gotten at least 2 tablespoons of grit out of the bottom of my rinse bucket that hadnt disinigrated yet, HOWEVER the rocks are still very rough. I don't understand why. Am I tumbling to slow? Can the grit dull to a point where it literally does nothing even though it's not fully broken down? (I thought grit would still grind at some rate, even if slower when wore out, until it's just dust). I feel like after nearly 5 weeks in stage 1, they should be moving on, or at least close to it. Yes, they have clearly worn down a bit, but they still have pretty defined corners and the surface is still pretty rough. No where close to a stage 1 smooth. If neither of those are a possibility, maybe my barrel is just too full? But I can definitely hear the rocks moving around, so I wouldn't think the fullness would delay progress by this much!

Any advice would be helpful.

Hi guys, newbie here.

After stage 3, we ran some borax to clean everything out, and they came out starting to show a nice gloss.

We started stage 4 and tossed in a few of those foam cubes from Nat Geo. About a day later it sounded funny to me and when I popped it open, it was dry inside. Maybe generally low water volume and the cubes sucked it up?

Added some water abd continued on. But after 4 they still looked dull. We just ran a day of Rock Shed's 8000 and still dull.

Safe to assume that the rocks bruised each other? How far back in grit should I go to get back on track?

Thanks!

This is a rock from a friend's outdoor landscaping. They were curious about tumbling and I said I'd shine up one of their rocks. Shown wet to enhance color.

After two weeks, the striping on the side looked like a little stick person to me - what a fun surprise!

Hey gang. It’s as the title said but it’s a Lortone 3A rotary that I got in October of 2023. It was working completely fine and then I turned it off to check on rocks today and when I tried to turn it back, the main rotor(?) that turns it does not turn and it doesn’t sound like the motor is going either

I know Lortone went out of business/got bought and I don’t know about any warranty that they might’ve had.

Anyone know the company that took over or knows of warranties that might’ve been put in place and followed to the new company?

I am looking to get a vibratory tumbler to help expedite the stages beyond rough. I am looking for something around $200 but would definitely love to hear if there are any more affordable options that are also good!

If possible I would like one that is not overly loud. I know they are pretty noisy no matter what, but any bit helps.

Also little side question. Do you use an extra fine grit? The grit package I got from rough stone and the ones I am looking at from poly plastics only include the 4 steps and no extra fine. Is there a noticeable difference?

I realize this is slightly off topic but it kind of relates. I recently built three vibratory tumblers using some 3/8" plate aluminum. I have a ton of little square or cubic pieces of that aluminum left over from this project and many others that I've made on my CNC.

Before I posted this I did Google to see if anyone had an answer to this but I didn't find exactly what I was looking for.

The whole reason I got into tumbling rocks is to make jewelry for my daughter, wife and friends. I think it would be awesome to tumble these pieces of aluminum if I could get them to round out and then polish them to a shine, and then make beads out of them for necklaces or bracelets.

Has anyone tried or accomplished this? If you did, what was your process? Rotary to start or all vibratory? What grits did you use? Any big mistakes that messed you up?

After 6 days at stage one (about half are new this round, half have gone through stage one for a week or two already), I just did a check on my tumbler. It was planned for tomorrow but the preschool geologist is home from school today so we did it a day early. Most will go back in for another round of stage one but some I think will be ready for stage two. I’m pretty sure all of this is quartz (please correct me if you disagree on any, I’m still very new!) that I collected at the Jersey Shore, with the exception of the pretty pink rose quartz at the bottom right corner that came from the NatGeo kit.

If you continue stage one for a second chunk of time, do you use the same slurry or do you start with new grit?

So this is my *second* time running one of the batches through phase 1. The other three barrels were ran through Stage 1 for 7 days with Rockshed grit (60/90). I can't really notice much of a difference at all on any of them. All of them still have jagged points and pits, and only one of the 4 barrels had *any* bubbling and slurry at all. The other 3 were totally grey liquid.

I've read up a lot and asked questions before, so this time I had my barrels filled 2/3 full and put in water to just above the bottom of the top level of rocks and made sure they were right *at* 3 lbs each with the water, grit, rocks and lids on.

This is like 4 weeks now where I'm doing something wrong, and I'd love to know what it is. :D

I even made some videos showing what it looked like:

https://youtube.com/shorts/IvIxiCnS6zQ?feature=share

https://youtu.be/ijh3KwkC_aM

The very first one is the one that has already been through Phase 1 (with the exception of the green agate in the back corner that looks like it's never been tumbled at all)

https://preview.redd.it/r6mshdnob0ge1.jpg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9b82c967aa3f3359ba49a48d4dfbfcb7a6e99c7

https://preview.redd.it/9j89wenob0ge1.jpg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=345cd7f2db8a92d4fc144fa01da984c76db597ce

https://preview.redd.it/i4jv5mnob0ge1.jpg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f35ed7a4bbe8abb7fdb1f83312e1999f9c349db

https://preview.redd.it/t6ac6gnob0ge1.jpg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74007509f94a40220f3ac8fcba9a5162327a783a

I’m new to the hobby (first batch and first stage ever) and I don’t know if I have all the grit removed from my stones.

Does it make a huge difference in the later stages or is there other ways of ‘washing’ them out? I have some stones with awkward cracks that I can’t tell.

Good day all. I am a VERY new newbie as I received a cheaper rock tumbler for Christmas. I have read a few posts regarding stage 1 tumbling. If I wish to leave my rocks in the tumbler for 3 to 4 weeks I understand that I should probably have a ceramic or plastic filler. If I do leave it tumbling that long do I need to replace my grit as it will break down? Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone, I'm doing a bit of research for a book and I wondering how my character can get rid of human bones with a rock tumbler. I know very little about rock tumbling so any resources to get me started would be great.

What would the bones look like at the end? How long would it take? How could the character get the bones to a fine powder? Is there anything you think I should know about rock tumblers?

I have a 6 month old Chicago Electric dual drum tumbler which i’m trying to install the shaft bearing upgrade on. The set screw for the larger shaft pulley is seized or cross threaded. I think the nylon pulley will be damaged removing the set screw. Anyone know of a parts source for that pulley or ideas beyond drilling out said set screw?

First time tumbler here. I have the Amazon 3 speed tumbler and took the instructions advice before finding this page. I think I ran stage 1 and 2 way too fast, (speed 3 in stage 1 and speed 2 in stage 2, each for 7-10 days). I’ve run them in stage 3 and 4 (1200 grit). Ever since stage 3 they have been dull once they dry and have not gotten any better. I’ve been very diligent about rinsing between stages as well. They look great when wet but then dry with a haze and just look beat up. So I bought the rock shed 8,000 polish thinking that would fix the problem. They have been in there for 7 days now and still are dull. Should I just keep running them another week in the 8,000 polish or go back to stage 1/2 and start over with them? They have been in ceramic media since stage 2 if that matters. Picture below of one of the rocks, but they all look the same.

I appreciate the website on here that sells cheaper media, however it's about 100$ to ship to Australia, which I most definitely cannot afford. I was gifted my partner's mom's old tumbler after she passed, and I do have coarse grit (for some reason, my father in law has a bunch of that laying around). Is there anything other than ceramic media people who cannot afford it use in lieu of it?

I currently have a Harbor Freight tumbler and I'd like to get something with a bigger barrel to be able to tumble slightly larger rocks (the addiction is real). What size rocks can be tumbled in a 4.5lb or 6lb barrel? Any special tips for using those? Which brands do you prefer? Thanks in advance!

I’ve done the first round of tumbling and the lid went on and came off easy enough but now it is seems impossible to close all the way. I tried tumbling with it mostly closed but I think it started to leak so I stopped. It is now incredibly difficult to open and as I said seems impossible to close. Looking at the amazon reviews of the product, it’s seems to be a common problem. Not sure what to do next

I heard that fluorite can be a tricky tumble and I was honestly not sure what all the fuss was about until I got to the polish step. There were some minor imperfections but overall I was really satisfied with how they looked.

I saw on YouTube and here that dry tumbling seemed to be the preferred method for softer stones like fluorite so I decided to go with that. I filled the 3 pound barrel 2/3rds of the way and filled it to about 80% with stones and finished it with 3 tablespoons of polish. I overstuffed the barrel compared to normal in hopes that it would be less harsh of a tumble.

I checked after a day and found that there was some chipping and cracking going on? So I filled it with a bit more of the ground cob and hoped that would help. When I checked it again today I was really sad to see that pretty much all of the stones were damaged and some had even broken off pieces.

Any ideas of where I went wrong or tips on how to prevent this in the future? I currently am trying out a wet polish with some mixed size ceramic media to see how that goes.