4x4tographer 2,711 Posted May 16 For my birthday, @Yodamom gave me a twin 3lb barrel rock tumbler. The tumbler is a Chicago Electric dual drum from Harbor Freight. It's belt-driven and comes with a package of 5 extra belts. The unit gets a little warm when running, but not too hot to the touch. Seems like a solid unit with a decent capacity. It's quieter than I thought it would be, but too loud for the house. It runs in the garage and I can't hear it in the house at all, so I'll call that a win. Decided to bust it out about a week ago and dump in a test batch of rocks I've picked up on our travels around Arizona. I do my best to remember to pick up something interesting on every trip I go on. We've started a collection around our flag pole out in front of our house that is slowly growing larger. I scooped up a handful of rocks from the collection, popped them in the barrel, and added some water until it almost covered the stones. To smooth out the rock you need to add in some form of coarse media to help enact 1,000 years of erosion in just a few days. Michelle also picked me up a 4-stage kit of abrasive media that consists of varying grits of silicon carbine in easy to use packets. Just tear open the desired stage and dump it in! I was totally too excited and spaced out and forgot to take a photo of the before! 😓 Here's a shot from after stage 1. The tumbler ran for 7 days for this round. Some pretty interesting results. I'm really happy with it - and the change from the initial shapes of the rocks is totally dramatic. Notably, when wet and rising off the rocks, the colors and depth of the stones was amazing. Once they dried, they got pretty dull looking. This is why you need to graduate from a coarse media up to a fine grit media. I've got the Stage 2 grit running now. It'll take another 7 days, which is killing me. However, when you stop to think about how much you're advancing the natural erosion process, it's pretty amazing. I did keep this rock out of the mix. I'm no geologist (though I took a semester of geology in college) but this next stone is looking like some sort of quartz or granite in iron. Maybe the lovely @Ladybug would be willing to weigh in on what I've got here! I don't think it's sedimentary, but I was worried about it flying apart in the next round of tumbling, so I kept it out. Here's a front and rear shot: More to come in 7 more days as the next round of tumbling begins! 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dzJeepChic 2,427 Posted May 16 Boy have I got some rocks you can have... 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
4WLNRN 518 Posted May 16 And you can tumble brass in that too, fyi. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ladybug 429 Posted May 20 Awesome Ryan!!! I don't know what rock that is, but it obviously has some quartz with iron staining! The tumbler that you got is a good solid one and will last a long time. Mine actually died awhile ago, but OB took it apart, adjusted the belt, oiled it, and it's running again. I currently have 4 tumblers going, as I get rocks tumbled for our November rock show....plus some to keep! These types of tumblers really shape the rocks, whereas the vibratory tumblers tend to leave the shapes more...but I like these tumblers...they're easy to use and in the garage they don't bother me at all! Next fall we'll have to take you guys out to our amethyst site...it tumbles real pretty....I"ll post a pic of stage one shortly! smiles, karen 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ladybug 429 Posted May 20 After the first rinsing, stage 1. This amethyst should be real pretty by the time I get it all the way thru all the grits. I have 2 tumblers of this going. smiles, ladybug 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
