Cut and Polish

Which stones will polish in my rock Tumbler? Knowing which stones you can polish in your rock tumbler is something important to discover when you start the hobby of polishing your stones with in a stone tumbler. You basically have two choices of sources of stones for your tumbler polisher – ones you collect yourself from the beach or ones you buy from a rock shop or online.

Collecting pebbles from the beach, river beds or even your back garden Many of the pebbles you can find on the beach or elsewhere are suitable for polishing in a rock tumbler and can end up as attractive ornaments or jewellery. Other stones however may be too soft or porous to polish well.

One of the easiest ways of checking to see if your beach pebble with polish well in your stone tumbler is to test the hardness of a stone by trying to scratch the surface with a penknife. If your penknife cuts a mark or produces a powdery line on the surface of the stone, then the pebble isn’t suitable for polishing in a rock tumbler. If the penknife however leaves a metallic line, then the stone is harder than the steel of the penknife and it will probably polish OK in the Rock Polisher. You should also look at the surface of the stone to see if it is pitted. If so then the pebble is probably porous and this type of pebble won’t polish very well.

What size stones are most suitable for rock tumbling? It’s best to collect stones that are generally 1 inch in diameter or smaller, one or two larger stones may be polished in a load that consists primarily of smaller stones. Also try to include some smaller stones in your rock tumbling barrel as these help to smooth action of the Tumbler.

Semi-Precious Stones for Rock Tumblers. You can also polish semi-precious stones in your Tumbling Machine. These can be purchased inexpensively online or from specialist lapidary rock or shops. Some of the most popular semi-precious stones suitable for tumble polishing are Amethyst, Rose Quartz, Blue Lace Agate and Aventurine. These are all members of the quartz family so can be polished together in the same tumbling barrel to give you a variety of colours.

By: Loretta Robersten

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Visit this link for information about Lapidary Stone Polishing and the interesting hobby of rock polishing.