Just getting started

bryan22

Welcome from Idaho. Tumbling is definitely an exercise in patience but the results can be amazing. Hang in there. You’ll be completely hooked in no time.

Welcome from Missouri.

Welcome from Lousy-ana

I have posted a picture of the rocks in my drum. I have no idea what kind they are, or how hard any of them are. They're just "3 lbs Bulk Rough Madagascar Stones Mix" from Amazon. Does this look like what you would expect at two weeks in grit #1? I also had a bunch of ceramic media. I suppose I may as well move on to grit #2, just to see the whole process.

Seems funny that I paid $16 for 3 pounds of rough rocks to tumble when I could have bought 3 pounds of the same rocks already tumbled for $19.

Where I live in California about the only rocks I can find "in the wild" are sandstone.

Hi from Australia.

Some of those are starting to shape up, so don't be discouraged. Others might not polish well, but the variety makes it fun.

The rocks aren't big and your tumbler is small, so I think you could get away with not using ceramic media in stage 1 because they shouldn't be battering and bruising each other too much (provided you have the tumbler about 75-80% full of rocks). If your rocks are getting low, add a few more in. The ceramic media might be slowing down the grinding, plus the coarse grit will chew up your media. Save that for later stages.

I would give them another run in coarse grit and see how they go. It may take a few more weeks in coarse grit to get them a shape you are happy with.

For future batches, you could try to get your hands on some nice agates and jaspers. They are good rocks to learn tumbling with because they are hard but take a good shine and can be pretty forgiving. People here might have recommendations on what to buy and where to buy it from, if you are interested.

The grit will break down and be less effective at grinding, so you should change your grit weekly (people do different things, but that's the sort of standard thing most people do). For a 1 pound tumbler, you probably only need 1 to 2 tablespoons of grit.

You can find basic rock tumbling instructions on sites like this:

rocktumbler.com/tips/rock-tumbler-instructions/

You can also find some very good tutorial videos on youtube, including by people in this forum. Here's a link to a list of channels you can check out if interested:

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/93544/listing-youtube-lapidary-channels-facets

A lot of sites (and instructions that come with tumbling machines) make it sound like rocks only spend a week or two in coarse grit before they're ready for the next stage. This tends to be a huge underestimation. How long they should spend in coarse grit depends on the types of rocks you have, how big they are, and what you want them to look like at the end. If you look through the threads in this forum you will see some people spend months and months tumbling their rocks in coarse grit to get them as round and flawless as possible. The coarse stage is the longest stage because that is where most of the rock shaping happens. In a tumbler like yours, once you're happy with the shape and condition of your rocks after the coarse stage, all the other stages will only take about a week each.

You're welcome. Keep us updated

Some companies sell bad grit too, make sure you use good grit for the best results..

Be careful with some of these rocks being soft. You might notice some getting smaller faster than others. Looking good though!