How to tumble obsidian in a rotary tumbler

Hi! I'm a moderately experienced rock tumbler so far using only rotary tumblers! If you want to tumble obsidian to a nice gloss, you found the right place!  Before we start: ALWAYS use 1 tablespoon of polish or abrasive for each pound the barrel is rated for for each step. 1st stage: Use 60/90 or 80 grit silicon carbide. Please use a 3 pound rotary barrel for all these stages! If you can't use one, please message me and I would be more than happy to help you! Ok, back to the formula. Fill up the barrel a tiny bit more than 3/4 of the way. Pour in water until just below the top of the rocks. Add 3 table spoons of the grit mentioned above. Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar if the obsidian type you are using came with flakes, chips or fractures. Run for One week. Open the barrel and inspect the pieces. make sure to wash the batch with water until you believe they are completely clean. If you want to go for that natural look with holes and stuff, then your time for the 1st stage won't be too long. Ideally however, you want them free of cracks, holes, pits and fractures. Check the rocks dry without water. As long as you rinsed them off good you won't have to worry about the slurry drying off while checking them in this stage. Check the rocks for any imperfections if any are done put them aside in a little container and add rock back to the barrel if a lot of space has been displaced. Fill up the barrel with water grit and sugar again. Repeat this process until they are to your liking. However if you want these holes and stuff, you might want to store the rocks that are ready for then next stage in water. Once you have enough to fill a barrel about 1/2 way, rinse of the rocks thoroughly and if they have imperfections get into the pits and cracks with a toothbrush under water to remove any of the coarse grit. Second stage: fill up the barrel with ceramic media with a ratio between rock and media at about 35% media and the rest obsidian until it reaches just a tiny bit above that 3/4 filled line. Make sure to use 3 tablespoons of sugar to cushion the rocks form fractures. Fill up the barrel with (If You have it) distilled water until just below the top of the rocks. Use 3 tablespoons of either 220 or 120/220 silicon carbide, It does not matter which one you use they will both yield identical results. Run for 10 days. When opening up the barrel, make sure to use a colander to wash out the ceramics and rocks. We will be using the same ceramic media the entire process. DO NOT use plastic pellets. Rinse off the rock thoroughly. Do not let any of the rocks dry out while doing this. Transfer the rocks back into the same barrel and fill with distilled water or tap water preferably distilled water, and cut a few shaving of ivory soap and use 2 tablespoons of borax or you can use just borax or just ivory soap. If you don't have either, You can use a drop of dish soap. Run the barrel for 6 hours. When you open the barrel after this stage, you might see some slurry that wasn't washed out. This will be our cleaning stage, also known as our burnishing stage. It is very important to do this. Especially if you have imperfections in your rocks. We will do this between every stage from now on. Now rinse of the rocks thoroughly and make sure every rock is doing ok. You may now let them dry to inspect. If you are going for that perfect look, in between stages you should check each rock dry after burnishing to make sure the rocks haven't developed any crack or sharp edges and stuff like that, if they have, simply just throw them out of the batch. 3rd stage: place the rocks into the barrel with the same ratio of ceramic and rock. We will use this ratio for every stage. Fill barrel with distilled or tap water. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of 500 or 600 Aluminum oxide grit. If you only have silicon carbide 500 or 600 grit I guess you can use that but it is not recommended at all. Run this for 12 days. Open the barrel, wash off the rocks thoroughly, do a burnish cycle, check them for holes cracks or pits, if they are good we move onto our: 4th stage: This step is highly recommended. We will be using 1200 or 1000 grit as a second pre-polish. fill the barrel with distilled water i(f you have hard water) until just below the top of the rocks. By the way if the rock's no longer reach that 5/7 way full of a barrel, add some clean ceramic media that hasn't been used in any grit below 1000. If it has just wash it off thoroughly and add it to the batch. Add 3 tablespoons of the pre polish listed above and add your sugar. Run for 16 days. Open the barrel after those days and rinse thoroughly and do your burnish, check your batch after the burnish for any imperfections. Now we will be using Cerium oxide polish. If you don't have this polish but are willing to buy some buy it from the rock shed or Kingsley north. If you can not afford it, You may use Aluminum oxide polish from Kingsley north or the rock shed. Another thing: If you have a polish barrel please use it! If you don't have one but can afford one please do! A polish barrel is a barrel that has only been used for polish. No other grits have been used in it. If you can't, just wash the barrel really really well. Add 3 tablespoons of Cerium oxide or Aluminum oxide polish from a reputable source. The polish should be at least somewhere between 8,000-12,000 grit. Add 3 tablespoon of sugar as well. Run for 3 weeks. Open the barrel and wash off immediately. It is very important to not let the rocks dry in these stages unless thoroughly cleaned and/or burnished. Make sure to burnish for about a day. After this you will have a fabulous finish! I hope this thread will help you out a lot. Thank you! If you have ANY questions please message me!. Have a great day!