how much water?

Greetings "BPaul", the water level i use is described in my Sticky #4 & use ceramic shapes instead of plastic pellets as they don't float, if your water level is too high your rocks gets beat up with plastic pellets, but not with ceramic shapes.

It takes more than 1 cycle of grit per stage to get good polished stones that you could
make into your own jewelery.

If you have good quality Quartz (Moh's 7.0) gravel you will probally reload your barrel
around 10 times with Fixed 80 (60 / 90) grit in order to get a reasonable rounded shape with
enough to fill a 1.36kg (3lb) or whatever size of barrel you have, after that stage a single cycle of grit per stage can be done.

Wash the barrel & stones, then do a 4 hour burnish wash then check your stones when
dry for rejects (pits, sharp points, cracks that can be felt with a fingernail, thins that can be
broken in two by just using in your fingers & thumbs), those that fail are back in 80 grit, those
that pass move on to the polish stage, usually it is only a few stones per 1.36kg (3lb)
load after at least 3 cycles in 80 (60 / 90) grit.

You will either need an unused barrel for polish or wash the barrel to clinical standards
to stop cross over grit contamination after each stage.

If you use plastic pellets, do not re-use the same pellets for all stages as they can carry
grit from one stage to the next, you can re-use pellets, but put them in a container marked
with the stage or grit grade, you should also mark the barrels too.

Ceramic shapes can be moved on to the next stage with the rocks.

While it is true that ungraded grits are cheaper within North America, it is also true
that fixed graded grits are cheaper within the U.K & the rest of the world!

Ungraded grits are generally not available or at an increased cost, so check the prices of both
before you buy!

You may be interested in a list of Rocks, Minerals, Fossils & or Lapidary clubs within the USA
American Federation of Mineralogical Societies: Club sites.

Also you may be interested that there is clubs that specialize within the field of lapidary within the UK,
but you will need to ask them what areas of lapidary they specialize in, some clubs do cater for all
levels & budgets, Southampton Mineral, Fossil & Lapidary Society &
Sussex Mineral & Lapidary Society others like my local club only specialize's in Cabbing & faceting
Scottish Minerals & Lapidary Club!

Gemology Online for faceting forums.

Please watch & listen to my Beach tumbler XviD encoded videos with both plastic & rubber barrels.

My camera's codec is Quicktime with around 1000kB per second, XviD codec is around 150 kB per second with 8bit stereo sound & no loss in video.

If you need the XviD Codec to encode your own movies (Freeware); it works on Windows
95/98/ME/2000/XP, Vista & most likely Win 7 too, Koepi's XviD Codec 1.2.2.

Note: XviD encoded movies works better in Winamp media player than Windows Media Player (all versions).

My first tumble for a picture heavy first steps.
--
I hail from (The Barony of Seabegs) Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, U.K, where aliens sometimes come
for a visit & about 4 miles west from this monstrosity!

Sticky's: their contents are resource information 1: Vendors worldwide, 2: FAQS: Tags & Smilies,
3: How to identify rocks & minerals, 4: Save money on expensive grits & polishes!