Tumbling already naturally tumbled rocks/ quartz

[Rock gal]

Hi!

This is my first post on these forums. How cool, I love a good old forum!

My first tumbler just arrived in the post today and I will do a test batch first with the rocks included.

I already have my own collection of things I plan to tumble. Some include a heap of clear quartz 'jellybean' crystals or varying colours which are already super tumbled and smooth, but have a frosty appearance (when dry).

Long story short, I am just wondering if tumbling these would require the full 4 stage process, so starting with the 60 grit, moving to finer and then to polishing stage or can sometimes people skip the coarser grit stage of they are already super well rounded?

Cheers for any advice!

Rock gal

[Faceting Frank]

Hi Rock gal and welcome to the forum.
I started off with tumbling, that's about 50 years ago. So, from memory with tumbling quartz, I used 60 grit to start till they were well shaped. One more grit stage and then cerium oxide with plastic pellets in as well. I don't know if the pellets were really needed, the lapidary shop said I needed to put them in to stop chipping.

[Rock gal]

Thanks Faceting Frank   

I've just started the first batch with step 1, 80 grit and put maybe 3 tablespoons of the plastic pellets in for good luck as I read they can improve the tumbling process and prevent chipping as you mentioned.

Super excited for the finished result prob this time next month! Decided to dive in and use all rocks from my own collection straight up, I'll make sure I share pics when completed.

[Rusted]

Hi and welcome.

They might look good and just frosted but they take a bit of a pounding being rattled along in rivers or the ocean. They definitely need a run in coarse grit first to remove the bashed about outer bit, it possibly wont take long but do it anyway.

I bet your instructions say to run the first stage for a week, this is wishful thinking, they stay in first stage as long as they need to. If they have jagged edges and cracks and divots  then they might need to be in first stage for a considerable time. My Agates run in 60 grit for months then are refined by hand to remove cracks and divots and then go back for a bit longer.

[Rock gal]

Hi Rusted,

This is very good advice, thank you!

[As I in does tries!]

Greetings Rock gal, I have not tumbled for at least 8 years  now, but I had some rocks that completely disappeared with the constant F80 grit every 5 days  for as long as 2.5 years
and that was just mixed colored Quartz.

The best advice I can offer is the last two stages  for Quartz is to use Aluminum Oxide grits or polishes, once the grit or polish breaks down it starts to naturaly polish rocks but only
those rock that do not contain Aluminum Oxide such as (Sapphire, Ruby and Corundum).

[Joy]

Hi Rock gal,
As a fellow newbie, I have learnt an awful lot about tumbling from you tube - especially the "Michigan Rocks" channel. Rob gives good, clear information and  i thoroughly recommend his channel to you. His basic instructions for successful tumbling would be
1.  Tumble in stage 1 as long as necessary to remove all of the cracks, divers and pits that you want removed. To do this, wash and check the rocks each week, putting them back in the tumbler with new grit if not yet done
2. Keep Rocks wet once you've started tumbling them, intil they're completely finished. The sludge sets like concrete if allowed to dry out, and  a tiny bit dried out in a hole/ scratch might either be impossible to get out or come out at a later stage and add deep gouges to your almost finished Rocks.
3. Clean very well between stages, removing all of the grit and dirt. Use borax and detergent to help with this.
4, as the Rocks needing to continue in coarse grit decrease, add more to keep the total volume the same
5. If you're using a range of sizes, you don't need to add plastic or ceramic pellets. These are only needed for either total volume or if all of your Rocks are larger.
6. Patience is the most important tool you can develop.
I'm only three months into my tumbling journey and I'm loving it. I've learnt so much and am improving all the time.
Cheers
Joy

[Rock gal]

Great advice Joy, especially the part about ensuring rocks are kept wet in-between stages. 

[Bucket]

I'm not sure I'd be tumbling 'for as long as necessary to remove all the crack etc', with a course grit. You could end up with very small stones! If you have access to a grinder, remove these cracks, divots, and pits with that. You can concentrate on the areas you need to with tumbling away most of the stone. If you don't have a grinder, think about joining a Lapidary club, they will have the equipment and expertise to help you out. Youtube is a wonderful tool but doesn't give all the info and may not point out the bad things that may happen. Adding rocks to keep the same volume, for instance, means you are introducing rough rocks at a stage that you shouldn't be. This is where ceramic media can help. I only use plastic at the last, polishing stages. I try and keep similar sized rocks in the tumbler, also similar hardness and roughness, otherwise you end up with hard rocks (or large ones) smashing into softer (or smaller) ones and causing problems.  We work on about a week in a rotary tumbler per grit and end up with a good finish on most stuff.

[Rock gal]

Thanks Bucket. This is my first tumbling batch ever, I'm using a the double barrel Auscut smooth 3 tumbler from Aussie Sapphire. Super impressed with the machine so far.

I had quite a lot of already well tumbled creek rocks but decided to throw em in (with other rougher ones too) but I'm realizing that the stage 1, 80 grit is probs not necessary unless you actually need to reshape the rock or remove rough edges, pits etc so my rocks which didn't really need to loose volume or need to be smoothed out more, have lost quite a bit of volume. It's all good tho it's important that I learn from this as I realize you can skip a stage or two if need.

I am on stage 3 and have nearly finished  the 600 grit silicone carbide and next one is 1 micron aluminium oxide for the final polish.

I've been using plastic pellets that came with the kit thru all stages to fill it up to 2/3 full.  I recently purchased 1kg mixed ceramic porcelain media from Aussie Sapphire as I read u can use it thru all stages of tumbling including the polish. I read that it's best to 'break it in' first by tumbling it for a while by itself?

I noticed you mentioned that you only use plastic media in the final polish stage. What will happen if I use the mixed ceramic porcelain media? I did a Google search and noticed others report no issues. Just a tad worried now as I have actually ran out of plastic media to be able to use ( I was trying to get away from the stuff coz it's a bit messy and I'm worried about it getting into the environment).

Reckon I can still use the porcelain mix without undoing everything?

Ps love the grinder tip too!

[Aussie Sapphire]

I've been using plastic pellets that came with the kit thru all stages to fill it up to 2/3 full.  I recently purchased 1kg mixed ceramic porcelain media from Aussie Sapphire as I read u can use it thru all stages of tumbling including the polish. I read that it's best to 'break it in' first by tumbling it for a while by itself?

Would recommend NOT using plastic pellets in that way.  It is a filler media so only use it in later stages where you have lost volume in the load such that you need to add some more material back in to get back to the optimal level in the barrel.

Always best to add enough rocks in the 1st stage - they will get a bit smaller and you may need to use some filler in say the #600 or polish stage but you should not need to add it earlier if you have put enough rocks in to start with.

Additionally, you should not move pellets in through the stages - they can embed grit in and cause scratching in later stages if you use the same ones.  So if you use some in the #600 stage, dont use those ones in a finer pre -polish or final polish stage.  Keep them separate and labelled so you know which stages they have been used in.

Ceramic (non-abrasive) media avoids this as you can effectively treat them as small rocks - if they are washed thoroughly between stages (as the rocks themselves would be), then you can move them forward to finer stages.

Hope this helps.


Cheers Leah

[Bucket]

What Leah said! I've never used the ceramic pellets at all, so I'm not sure about breaking them in, but thinking about it, tumbling them a little first up would take any sharp edges off them. Having said that, that would happen when using them the first time in a coarse grit anyway. I don't think the ceramic would embed any grit as they are quite hard, but wouldn't like to chance it, so would probably keep using the plastic one for polishing and keep the ceramic for anything else. We have been using the same plastic ones for some years now. One of our members uses the plastic crossed shape tile spaces with success for the polish stage.
I'm not surprised that you ran out of plastic pellets, the coarse grit would have made them disappear! I find them good to use when polishing as they are easy to separate from the rocks when time come to clean them. We just use a large kitchen strainer (stainless steel) to scoop them off the top of the water and put them in another bucket.
We are looking at getting some ceramic media for filling when we have a smaller batch to put through, a Christmas present for our club!

[Rock gal]

Thanks Leah and Bucket!

I should clarify a bit more, I had a 500g bag of plastic media and 2 barrels filled 2/3 to 3/4 with rocks. I added about 1 tablespoons to each in the first stage 80 grit as I wasn't sure if needed it even tho had plenty of rocks to fill

Didn't realize u can re use these things so I threw out the first load of plastic pellets and as my rocks lost a lot of volume after stage 1, I added plastic pellets to both barrels for stage 2 (new plastic) .  I then read they r re usable for the same grit type so I put them into a container for future use. 

Stage 3, more volume lost so added plastic filler media to both barrels. I have just finished this stage and have put the pellets into container to re use for same grit cycle in future.

So now I'm up to stage 4 final polish.

My rocks are very smooth but they don't necessarily look much smoother or shiner than after finishing stage 2 . Just have more volume loss.  I've been washing them very thoroughly between stages as well as the barrel making sure not one scrap of plastic was left from prev stage.   I'm also feeling that I could have run stage 2 and 3 a bit shorter to get the same results because the grits appear to work so well but not sure as I'm a learner 🤓

Hoping that the 1 micron polish will do its thing!  I'll be using the ceramic media with this. Will run it overnight just to wear it in a bit as suggested in the instructions for it.

Welcome any further tips in the meantime!

Cheers

[Rock gal]

Hii

Quick update for this post

Finished the polish stage a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure if these can get any shinier or not but I'm just going to make do. They were tumbling for a week.

A few stones sustained some damage which was not evident in the previous tumbling stages. My guess is that the large ceramic cylinders in the media I used may be responsible as something has definitely been hammering away.  I would only use them in stage 1 in future if need I think just incase it was these that caused it.

Most survived though unscathed. The best shine came out on the petrified wood and some of the quartz jelly beans!

Pics below!

[Faceting Frank]

They look good, now you will have to get into silversmithing to make custom pendants with them.