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Tumbled Rocks
The StoryI honestly never thought that I would be tumbling stones, but I found that the easiest way to clean small steel bracelets, necklaces, chainmail and such, was in a rock tumbler with some fine sand. In comes the rock tumbler, not an expensive one. After all, we need to make sure that this is going to work. It does, works great, takes powdery, dark galvanized steel and puts a shine back on it. Unfortunately, the tumbler came with a bag of stone and the grits needed to polish them. It would be a waste not to try it, so .... well, the long and short is that I'm hooked. Pretty stone, verrrry pretty :-)
The Stones
I don't understand the rocks, yet. I can't identify one from another, where they came from, or even what an unpolished rock may look like post-tumbler. I also won't insult the folks who do know, by trying to guess. To me they are just shiny, wet-looking, pretty stones for me to make things out of.
The idea is that you put in about 1 lb. of raw stones, with some water and an abrasive material (sand, grit, iron filings, etc. - I'm reliant on the pre-packaged stuff that is labeled coarse, medium, and fine) into the drum. The drum will spin for a while, letting the stones crack, bang, and rub against one another, until all of the hard angles are worn off and it has a smooth polished, 'wet' look. It is done in stages, and requires you to stop and change the grit to something finer in order to remove all of the little scratches, but it's worth it.The Tumbler
This is my tumbler. It is a 'Rolling Stones Rock Tumbler'. Aren't you glad you know that now :-) The red part is the drum where the rocks/water/grit go, and the grey part is the base and motor housing. Barely visible just under the left hand edge of the drum is a little wheel which turns the drum. You can't get mechanically easier than this. Take a look online and you'll find some truly amazing machines. Truck tires turned into tumblers, sonic tumblers, industrial tumblers that don't look like they'd fit in my yard, I really didn't know there was this much of an industry for tumbled stones.
The Process
This is where I was again surprised. It takes a long time (not compared to nature, of course), a lot longer than I expected anyway. For the stones shown above, following the instruction booklet, this is what your timeframe would look like:
Medium Grit: 12-14 days
Fine Grit (polishing): 7-8 days
Total: 21-26 days (nearly 1 full month)
This is not something you can do at the last minute :-) The times are dependant on how the stones look. They have to pass each stage before they advance to the next one, even if that means 8 days in the coarse grit instead of 4.
Hint: Put the tumbler in the garage - IT IS VERY NOISY! No lie, I thought I could tuck it away in my basement office and keep the doors closed while it worked. My wife was fed up with it after only 2 days (if you haven't realized by the rest of this site, she doesn't break easily). My garage doesn't get below freezing so I moved it out there for the month of January. It was much nicer in the house, but if it had of been during the summer I would have had the neighbours beating down my door.
My Opinion
I'll keep doing it, but only on small scale. This gives me enough stone to make jewellery from, without having tons of rock laying around. Fun, low maintenance, relatively low cost, long duration hobby.
Brett