Oh well,,,,,here I go again stickin' my nose in!!
But,,,,,ain't that what we're all here for??? LOL
Hi Cher,
First if you have grit in the barrel you don't have to re-charge completly.You're just wasting grit.I can't tell you how many lbs of grit I wasted when I first started.
Second,there's only a few reasons that you're having this problem.
Overloading
Too much water
Tumbler turning too slow
I doubt if your tumbler is turning too slow so we'll eliminate that one.
Overloading,,,,Aha!! Good chance of that.
If you overload a whole bunch of "not so good" things can happen and one is not enough room in the barrel for the rocks to there thing and you won't get the right "tumbling action".
Too much water?? Could be one of your problems too.
(here's where I might get lambasted LOL)
There's a few theories about how much water to use and mine isn't usually excepted,,,,so,,,,,,
The 1st is to put enough water in to just under the top row of rocks.
The 2nd is to put enough water in to just cover the rocks.
The 3rd (mine) is to use a lot less water when you first start a load.
The way I look at it is that the whole idea of roughing is to do it as good and as fast as possible,,,,so,,,,
The only way I have found to do this is to use less water which makes the rocks grind a lot faster.In doing this you will get a very thick "slurry" in about 2-3 days,,,sometimes less.You can tell when the slurry is too thick by listening to the "action' in your tumbler.When it stops sounding like it did when you first started the load then it's time to stop and open the barrel.it will sound kind of "slugish".
Now I add a "little" warm water and let it run for about 2 more days and recharge or go to the next step if the rocks are ready.
I forgot to mention that I use #30 grit for most of my roughing but the "less water technique" will work with 60/90 as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Overloading:
I've talked about this before but lets go through it again.
It's very easy to overload your barrels for several reasons.
The 1st and most obvious is you want to get as many rocks polished as you can,,,,,in a hurry!! LOL What do you do?? Put as many as will fit to make the 2/3 or 3/4 mark in your barrel.
Another reason is rock size.
Lets say you load a pickup truck with enough big rocks to fill it to the top of the sides.
Weigh the truck.
Now lets fill the same truck with tiny little pebbles to the same point.
Weigh the truck.
Which one weighs more??
The load with the big rocks leaves a lot of spaces between each rock which equals less volume.
The load with the tiny pebbles doesn't leave much room at all between each pebble which equals more volume,,so,,,,,
The truck loaded with the tiny pebbles weighs more!!
So if you fill your tumbler barrel with as much as you can you "MAY" be overloading it.
This goes back to weighing your rocks which was discussed in another thread here on the board.
Some say yes ,some say no.
I'm a "yes" kinda guy myself and weigh every load on a deli scale to the 0.01 of a lb.
I weigh the grit the same way.
Aha,,,,,Before I forget.
A properly filled barrel consists of at least 1/3 of the load being smaller rocks.This WILL give you the right tumbling action you're looking for.
One way to do this is to use a filler.In this case (roughing) we won't use plastic pellets.Instead we'll use another type of "junk" rock.
Most times we don't have enough of the smaller pieces of the same rocks we want to tumble so we have to get something else.
Aha,,,,Let's use some of that junky rock with all the pits and cracks in it,that I didn't know what to do with.Lets break them up into small pieces to use as a filler!!
Hmmmmm,,,,,Are they the same hardness as the rocks we want to polish??We better try to scratch one against the other to see which is harder,,,, or are they both the same ??
Yipee,,,,They're both the same hardness!!
Don't throw your "junk" away,,,,,No matter what you wife or husband or conscience says!! LOL
I REALLY hope this helps and I would LOVE to hear some feedback and all of your own ideas and theories.
Just think,,,,If we could weed out the bad theories and just keep the good uns,,,,We'd all be one bunch of tumblin' fools!!
Or are we that already!! LOL
Tom