Substituting sand for rock tumbler grit will not save money. Instead it will probably cost more time and electricity than the savings of grit that you achieve. It most likely will produce lower quality results. The only exception might be when tumbling very soft materials such as obsidian, marble, fluorite and calcite. What kinds of rocks are best for tumbling and polishing? The same process used for hard rocks will not work for shells.
As a crystalline variety of quartz, rock crystal can be polished to a very high luster but many people who tumble it in pieces over about one inch in size experience a problem — tiny bruises around the edges of their tumbled stones. These bruises are caused by quartz-to-quartz impacts within the tumbler barrel.
Amethyst quartz, clear quartz, white quartz, rose quartz and smoky quartz are very popular for rock tumbling. Aventurine is another variety of quartz that is popular with rock tumblers and jewelry makers.
It is a quartz that contains inclusions of mica, iron oxide or other minerals. The quickest solution to this is to give them a good coat of shellac or polyurethane that makes them appear to be polished. With each stage, you throw out the garbage, put in a new grit material and allow the barrel to do its job without disturbing the contents.
A vibratory tumbler however manages to cut that time cleanly in half. You then follow this up with the fine grit and then the polishing grit for 3 days each. Check and repeat as needed. What if you use both the rotary and vibratory tumbler to speed up the process? Indeed, this will speed up the stages further without reducing the quality of the stone you come up with. The rotary tumbler would be used with a coarse grind for 7 days before moving it to the vibratory tumbler.
The vibratory tumbler would be responsible for the medium, fine, and polishing grit, all three taking one week or less. This will produce beautifully polished stones that would look better than the stones you get if you only use a vibratory tumbler type. So why not just use the vibratory tumbler to really get fast results? There are two main reasons for this. The first one is that a vibratory tumbler is much more expensive.
It costs more than 50 percent of the rotary tumbler which can be off-putting for complete beginners. The second reason is that vibratory tumblers do not create rounded stones.
It smoothens out the surface, but if you want a softly rounded look, the vibrator type would not be a good choice. The hardness of the rock will also determine how long it would stay in the tumbler for you to produce a smooth finish.
Harder rocks like quartz, agate, and jasper may need all of four weeks or more inside a rotary tumbler. The likes of marble, fluorite, and calcite however, are integrally softer may need only a short period of time inside the rotary. As a rule of thumb, anything with a hardness of 3 in the Mohs scale would need only 3 days to smoothen out.
For those that are between 4 to 5. Anything beyond that however would need the full 7 days to create the rounded curves. Note however that when we talk about rounding rocks based on their hardness, we are only referring to the course grind.
Hence, a stone with a hardness of 3 only need to be on the coarse grind for 3 days. After that, you can follow up with the medium grind, the fine grind, and the polishing grind — all for the requisite period of 7 days each.
For example, a fingernail has a hardness of 2. A copper penny is 3. Have these small things handy when checking stones and you should be able to tell which stones will take longer to tumble. Understand that when rock tumbling , the rocks should be the same level of hardness, otherwise they might scratch each other inside the barrel. This will remove the rough edges from your rocks and give them a round shape. To start, fill your barrel about half to two-thirds of the way full.
For the best results, you should try to use various size rocks. The next step is to add your coarse grit about two tbsp per pound of rock followed by water to nearly the top edge of your rocks. Close the barrel firmly and clean up any water or debris.
Not everyone will do this next step, but I like to weigh my barrel before starting the machine. Every tumbler has a maximum weight. I should mention here that tumblers can be noisy so you should probably set up in either your garage or basement — or even a shed if it has electricity. Then after your rocks have been tumbling for about a full week, and they are the shape you want them to be, remove your rocks from the barrel and rinse in a clean bucket of water.
Harder rocks and rocks with strong angles will take longer to shape than softer, smoother rocks. Just be sure to check on them every day or so. Some people will even go so far as to use separate sponges for each type of grit when cleaning their barrel. Follow the same process as before, again adding pellets if needed. Be sure to clean the pellets good because grit will stick to them. This stage is going to use a grit that looks like a fine powder. After another week in this stage, your rocks should come out with a bright shine and look absolutely stunning.
During the polish stage, you should consider using some plastic pellets to protect your rocks from hitting each other. This will put even more shine on your rocks, brighten them up, and remove any haze and residue from the slurry.
Whatever you use, make sure there are no additives in the soap that will harm your rocks. Also, be sure to add your plastic pellets for protection. The ratios here are the same as in the grit stages. About two tbsp per pound of rock is recommended. Remove all other families of rock. So there you have it. The complete process for tumbling rocks in your rotary tumbler. Expect to wait weeks on average to complete the entire process.
The same process used for hard rocks will not work for shells. Since tumbling shells is more about the polish stages, you may want to consider a vibratory tumbler instead of a rotary.
Well you can actually make your own sea glass at home in your rock tumbler. Glass is considered slightly harder than seashells, but still not as hard as your average quartz. My disclaimer to this is to never clean any coin of value. For clad, this applies mostly to copper and zinc metals. Instead of grit, a lot of people like to use aquarium gravel and dish soap.
Limit your tumbling to a few hours maximum. Want to join a forum where you can connect with fellow rock tumblers? I highly recommend the Rock Tumbling Hobby Forum. Your local hobby or rock shop will be the best place to buy these since you can also talk to the owner and get some invaluable advice.
But since not everyone lives near a rock shop, most times it makes more sense to buy your roughs online at places like amazon. There are also more specialized sites out there like therockshed.
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