kat5hva
off to a rocking start
Member since June 2023
Posts: 2
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Post by kat5hva on Jun 5, 2023 10:49:29 GMT -5
I am new and will need to buy rock for now. My question is about how much to buy to make it a worthwhile purchase and shipping. I realize the tumbler I"m looking at holds 3 pounds, and i understand about losing the weight and size during the first stage. I also realize, rocks are heavy. So my question is two fold. I'd like to get enough to tumble now, and at the same time acquire a little bit extra for future use. Would 1 pound of each type of rock be a good start or should i be looking at a minimum of 2 or 3 pounds of each choice to experiment with? Just trying to get the most bang for my buck on the shipping fees. I've never weighed rocks so am not able to visualize how many rocks it takes to make a pound, (and I get that it depends on how large of rocks i'm looking at) Hopefully I've worded the question so it's understandable. Thanks for your assistance
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Post by Starguy on Jun 5, 2023 11:47:24 GMT -5
kat5hvaGreat question and welcome to RTH. As you mentioned, you will need to replace rocks after each cleanout. You’ll need at least three pounds to start. After roughly a week, you will need to replace some that move on and some that are ground smaller. I would estimate 10-20% per week in coarse. That is roughly 3.6 lbs for about 2 weeks. At that point you will be sorting rocks to move on to stage 2. It takes a while to sort enough for the next stage. The important thing is to use rocks of different sizes. If they’re all the same size you may be disappointed. You need mostly small and medium rocks but you can throw in a couple larger pieces too. Try to keep your tumbler barrel 2/3 - 3/4 full at the start of the grind. Good luck. Looking forward to some photos of your progress.
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Post by aDave on Jun 5, 2023 12:47:50 GMT -5
I am new and will need to buy rock for now. My question is about how much to buy to make it a worthwhile purchase and shipping. I realize the tumbler I"m looking at holds 3 pounds, and i understand about losing the weight and size during the first stage. I also realize, rocks are heavy. So my question is two fold. I'd like to get enough to tumble now, and at the same time acquire a little bit extra for future use. Would 1 pound of each type of rock be a good start or should i be looking at a minimum of 2 or 3 pounds of each choice to experiment with? Just trying to get the most bang for my buck on the shipping fees. I've never weighed rocks so am not able to visualize how many rocks it takes to make a pound, (and I get that it depends on how large of rocks i'm looking at) Hopefully I've worded the question so it's understandable. Thanks for your assistance Welcome to the Forum. To get the most bang for your buck, I'd buy from a vendor who will ship in a USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate box. I'd venture to say that most do, as shipping by weight alone would get extremely expensive. I don't know how much rock a small flat rate box (SFRB), but it might only be 3 pounds or so. It's really not very big, so you won't see a bunch of material with that. If your budget would allow for it, I'd recommend getting enough rock to nicely fill a medium flat rate box. A MFRB can hold 20 pounds or more and is a much better cheaper way to get material then buying multiple SFRB's. I realize that 20 pounds may seem like a lot of material, but if you get into this, it will start to go away sooner than you think. Also, while you didn't ask, you're probably going to want to have additional grits, and a MFRB can hold some of that as well if you don't want to just load the box with rocks. One vendor that many of the folks here use is the Rock Shed. Spend a bit of time there and pop back in here with additional questions. Oh yeah, since your new, stick to tumbling agates and jaspers first, as they are pretty hard rocks and good results can be had by even the newest tumbler. Other rocks, even though they might look nice, might be softer and might not turn out the way you are hoping. Good luck.
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chris1956
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2022
Posts: 1,171
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Post by chris1956 on Jun 5, 2023 15:35:59 GMT -5
Welcome from Missouri. You might let everyone know where you are from. They may have suggestions on where you can pick up local material to "practice on" that you wouldn't have to pay for. That's what I did and it gave me a wide range of material to figure out what worked for what before paying a lot of money for other rocks.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Jun 5, 2023 17:47:08 GMT -5
Welcome from Northern Arizona!
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dshanpnw
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since December 2020
Posts: 884
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Post by dshanpnw on Jun 5, 2023 20:11:45 GMT -5
Welcome from Washington state. Our state gemstone is petrified wood. Very good question. I think 5 pounds is good place to start or 1 pound of a few different types is also good. Let us know how you do.
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Post by Pat on Jun 5, 2023 20:13:43 GMT -5
Some would say you never have too many rocks. I’m not a tumbler. Good luck!
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dillonf
fully equipped rock polisher
Hounding and tumbling
Member since February 2022
Posts: 1,577
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Post by dillonf on Jun 5, 2023 22:55:26 GMT -5
For a 3lb tumbler I would buy 4lbs of rock (could round it up to 5??). Be careful with Jasper - not all are easy to tumble. Unakite, Red Jasper, Desert jasper, Botswana agate, and Swazi (Mozambique) agate are some good ones to start with that are readily available - in my opinion. The agates will need a longer time in stage 1. If you wanna do a mixed batch I would do a jasper only batch or an agate only batch to start. I do mix jasper and agates together fairly frequently, but I wouldn't recommend it to start. The Botswana agate I've gotten from the rock shed and kingsley north is beautiful, but it takes literally months of stage 1 grinding before you can move it to stage 2 - maybe not best for your first go?
Mexican lace agate is a classic that isn't too hard, but I'd get a couple of batches under your belt first. In my opinion I get the large to medium size rocks and ceramic media as filler. I find with the small size rough I grind most away to nothing in stage 1.
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Jun 28, 2023 7:09:23 GMT -5
I purchase almost all of my rock. I never buy less than 5 Lbs (unless it is something super expensive or something I am experimenting with). I get 25 Lbs whenever I can (or a lg flat rate box worth). I purchase from members on this forum, the Rock Shed, Kingsley North, and on rare occasion The Gem SHop (just because their prices seem a little higher to me and I have had a couple "short" bags that were a couple ounces shy of the purchased weight). I have a 14 inch slab saw and a couple tile saws, so I often purchase cutting rough and chop it up for tumbling. I do have 7 rotary tumblers and a vibe so I process a lot of rock (I run a 15 lber, a 12 lber and usually a 3 lber all in course all the time). When I first started out it seemed a 5 lb bag of rock lasted forever, but now I blow thru 5 lbs in just 2 or 3 recharges of the big barrels. Just an FYI I purchase my 60/90 grit in 50 lb lots about every 3 years.
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 28, 2023 7:55:12 GMT -5
Welcome from Southern Nevada.
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geoff59
spending too much on rocks
Member since October 2022
Posts: 278
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Post by geoff59 on Jul 1, 2023 4:35:35 GMT -5
Welcome here from the New Hampshire back 40. What they all said! Stick with the easy ones for your first tumbles. The online sellers on those places that start with a small letter e in name are both good sources of rock/rough by the pound, many which include free shipping. You have to be careful there too, and be sure to shop around on the sites and check feedback before you buy any. And then for the lapidary businesses and their websites, you won’t go wrong there either, even though it’ll be price plus shipping. Don’t forget about media either, ceramic pellets, because you will need them too. And grit. You might do yourself a favor and buy everything from the same, reputable seller to start with. Lastly, #1200 mesh aluminum oxide is NOT polish. Some (too many) grit sellers pawn this off as a polish, usually you’ll see it in those smaller all inclusive grit kits. When I started this my first mistake was buying grit on flea bay and not knowing any better I purchased a 3 lb bag of polish that I later figured out was only #1200 mesh. My first couple of tumbles ended up being a disappointment until I learned that real polish is much finer than that, say nothing less than around #8000 mesh. It’s really tough for most of us at first to be patient, but focused patience will be one of your best tools. Take notes every step of the way for each tumble. I number my drum lids with black permanent marker (which needs remarking every so often) and use a journal approach, others use tape on the lid and make all their notes on the tape, replacing it often.
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michiganpebbler
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2023
Posts: 344
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Post by michiganpebbler on Jul 1, 2023 9:01:56 GMT -5
Welcome from lower Michigan!
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Post by Rockoonz on Jul 1, 2023 11:43:39 GMT -5
Welcome from AZ I say get ALL the lbs of rocks, you can never go wrong there...
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scotydog826
starting to shine!
Member since July 2023
Posts: 40
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Post by scotydog826 on Aug 7, 2023 15:35:47 GMT -5
Buy a variety at first and you will figure out which rocks you like tumbling best.
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Post by Mel on Aug 14, 2023 23:11:41 GMT -5
I am new and will need to buy rock for now. My question is about how much to buy to make it a worthwhile purchase and shipping. I realize the tumbler I"m looking at holds 3 pounds, and i understand about losing the weight and size during the first stage. I also realize, rocks are heavy. So my question is two fold. I'd like to get enough to tumble now, and at the same time acquire a little bit extra for future use. Would 1 pound of each type of rock be a good start or should i be looking at a minimum of 2 or 3 pounds of each choice to experiment with? Just trying to get the most bang for my buck on the shipping fees. I've never weighed rocks so am not able to visualize how many rocks it takes to make a pound, (and I get that it depends on how large of rocks i'm looking at) Hopefully I've worded the question so it's understandable. Thanks for your assistance I am the master of the super vague answer, and that is that it depends. My rule of thumb for shipping anything nowadays is 10 pounds minimum or not worth it BUT I'm up north and shipping anything cross border is a minimum $70 these days. Harder rocks will lose less but take longer, softer rocks will wear faster and require more refills to keep going, so I would say 5-6 pounds and see what happens. Invest in some ceramic media (buy the largest you can find, it all wears down eventually) to fill in the empty space or relocate some gravel from your local alley/grid road/lake bed if you have to.
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pebblesky
fully equipped rock polisher
Placed another order in rockshed. Happy 2024 everyone!
Member since September 2022
Posts: 1,358
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Post by pebblesky on Aug 15, 2023 0:41:49 GMT -5
Welcome kat5hva! +1 to what has been said above, a USPS Medium Flat Rate box of about 20 pounds of rocks to start with, and each type of at least 2~3 pounds. You will soon realize 3 pound tumbler really doesn't produce much every weak, especially if you have some opinion on how smooth the tumbled rocks SHOULD look like. We can discuss further on this topic once you upgrade to a 12-pound tumbler...
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rocknewb101
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since October 2022
Posts: 1,316
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Post by rocknewb101 on Aug 15, 2023 7:19:39 GMT -5
Welcome to the lapidary arts from NE Ohio! I also buy most of my rock - We have Ohio Flint here, but not a whole lot else...IMO you can never have enough rocks! I just took stock of what I have and found things I'd forgotten about (and I'm relatively new too!!). I like being able to always have something to refill the barrels with as I pull out those ready to move on. I have three rotaries rolling with stage 1 at all times and it takes me several weeks sometimes to get enough to start my stage 2. Enjoy! Look forward to seeing pics.
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