This method is working on a regular basis. Works on agates, jaspers, pet wood, and crystalline quartz.
It requires little attention and depends on SiC 30 breakdown in a rotary and AO 500 in a vibe.
A thick slurry helps to circulate the heavy SiC 30. Thicken at start with clay or used slurry.
About 10-12 weekly grit additions were made during the coarse grind in the rotary.
No clean outs, just water to thin slurry as needed and grit additions. About every other week.
Rocks were run for a few minutes after a water add and excess slurry poured off to just below rock level.
Maintained milk shake consistency for slurry.
Last 30 grit addition is run for two weeks to break grit down to what must be 400 grit +/-(slight shine at sharp angle).
Rocks then removed and cleaned well. Transferred to vibe. Sugar and water added at a rate of 1 cup each for 14 pounds of rock.
Vibe run for 4 days with AO 500. Water sometimes added at day 3, only if needed.
To clean sugar and final burnish, rocks are cleaned briefly and let drain and put back in vibe wet.
Two tablespoons of Borax added and vibe run for 12-24 hours.
Do not let Borax dry out. Could be considered step 3, but no abrasives required.
Borax leaves a miracle shine.
Method seems to work fine with rotary barrel 50% or up to 75% full.
Thick slurry allows lower rock level, say barrel at 50-60% full.
Having what seems to be faster grind rates with barrel at 50-60% full, even with milk shake consistency slurry.
Thick slurry protects rocks from banging when barrel is at 50-60% full.
No longer using 220-1000 or final(14,000) polish. Just SiC 30 and AO 500. Borax.
Process is not at all like the instructions say. But it works, for me anyway.
And has greatly simplified my hassle with so many grits.
Before Borax
Thick slurry has protected delicate shapes like this on many occasions even when rolling with large rocks.
Very thin chips with no chipped edges or fractures
An idea of how thin the chips were before tumbling
A large percentage of my tumbles have been thin chip as above. It was a challenge to avoid chipped edges in the rotary that do not tumble away.
The same protective effect can be had by filling the barrel more. But that slows the grind and grit breakdown.
The best solution to my problem was a thicker slurry.