Rock Hounding

•  Make sure to tumble rocks with the same hardness together, otherwise the softer ones will crumble to nothing.

• You can always stop the tumbler and check your material to see how it progressing and if any eyes or water levels have shown through!

 

Step 1:

You are going to fill your tumbler ¾ full of the rock material you want to have tumbled.

Put in 8 tablespoons of step 1 grit for tumbler 45C, 12 tablespoons for QT6, 4 tablespoons for 3A or 33B per pot.

Fill the barrel with water so it is covering the rocks, but does not go over the inside rim of the tumbling barrel.

Put the sealing top on, then the metal cover, add the washer over the metal bolt that sticks out and then tighten down the screw on black round fitting so it is tight.

Plug in your tumbler and then put the barrel on.

Let this tumble 3-4 days depending on the roughness of your material (how much you want to take off the outside) If you are not sure, on day three unplug the tumbler and open the barrel and check the material.  If you want more husk off, run the tumbler for another day or two.

Step 2:

Once you have completed step one, unplug the tumbler and dump the materials into a strainer OUTSIDE ON THE YARD OR GRAVEL. Then rinse well with water until all the grit and dirty water is off the rocks.

MAKE SURE NOT TO WASH THEM IN THE SINK, THE MATERIAL WILL HARDEN AND CLOG YOUR DRAINS

Then put the rocks back in the tumbler and add grit stage 2 – the same amount you used in stage 1.

Fill the barrel with water so it is covering the rocks, but does not go over the inside rim of the tumbling barrel.

Put the sealing top on, then the metal cover, add the washer over the metal bolt that sticks out and then tighten down the screw on black round fitting so it is tight.

Plug in your tumbler and then put the barrel on.

Let this tumble 3-4 days depending on the roughness of your material.  This stage rounds the rocks off so they feel nice and smooth with no jagged edges and starts to fine sand them.

 

Step 3:

Once you have completed step two, unplug the tumbler and dump the materials into a strainer OUTSIDE ON THE YARD OR GRAVEL. Then rinse well with water until all the grit and dirty water is off the rocks.

MAKE SURE NOT TO WASH THEM IN THE SINK, THE MATERIAL WILL HARDEN AND CLOG YOUR DRAINS

** At this point you may have lost quite a bit of material from your rocks and filler may need to be introduced to take up some of the now available space.  You can fill this in with other small agates, or ceramic pellets, or plastic pellets.  This helps your rocks not tumble to hard against each other and crack **

Then put the rocks back in the tumbler and add grit stage 3, the same amount you added from stage 1.

Fill the barrel with water so it is covering the rocks, but does not go over the inside rim of the tumbling barrel.

Put the sealing top on, then the metal cover, add the washer over the metal bolt that sticks out and then tighten down the screw on black round fitting so it is tight.

Plug in your tumbler and then put the barrel on.

Let this tumble 3-4 days.  This really smooths the rocks off and gets them ready to polish.

Step 4:

Once you have completed step three, unplug the tumbler and dump the materials into a strainer OUTSIDE ON THE YARD OR GRAVEL. Then rinse well with water until all the grit and dirty water is off the rocks.

MAKE SURE NOT TO WASH THEM IN THE SINK, THE MATERIAL WILL HARDEN AND CLOG YOUR DRAINS

** At this point you may have lost quite a bit of material from your rocks and filler may need to be introduced to take up some of the now available space.  You can fill this in with other small agates, or ceramic pellets, or plastic pellets.  This helps your rocks not tumble to hard against each other and crack **

Then put the rocks back in the tumbler and add polish stage 4, the same amount you added in stage 1.

Fill the barrel with water so it is covering the rocks, but does not go over the inside rim of the tumbling barrel.

Put the sealing top on, then the metal cover, add the washer over the metal bolt that sticks out and then tighten down the screw on black round fitting so it is tight.

Plug in your tumbler and then put the barrel on.

For this stage let the tumbler run 7 days.  This will bring out the best shine on your rocks.  At day 7 stop the tumbler and open it up, take two rocks out and wash the polish foam off of them.  Let them dry for a minute and make sure they are shiny.  If it is not shiny enough, put them back in and restart your tumbler and let it run another day or two.

 

You’ve finished! Now you get to enjoy your now shiny polished rocks!

Make sure to go show them off!