Tumbled – The People’s Polished Rocks!

“Hi! Do you like rocks? Agate, petrified wood, jasper, stuff like that?”

It’s a good conversation starter. Often the reply is, “I’ve got a rock tumbler!” After a nice chat, people who were only at my house to repair an appliance have walked away with a chunk of petrified wood or Pigeon Blood agate.

After you pick up a pretty rock on a vacation, maybe win one of my contests, or just happen to be at my house to repair the washing machine, then what do you do? You can tumble the rocks and make things with them. Rock tumblers are the most popular way to take the next step into rock hounding. You can get a simple rock tumbler for less than $50. You shouldn’t have to pay more than $100 for a pretty good one.

Looking for a birthday present for your retired uncle who doesn’t seem to know what to do with his time? Give him a rock tumbler!

Among the rocks my dad left behind was a few pounds of tumbled rocks that he polished for a contract with the Utah Museum of Natural History gift shop. My dad loved to build his own equipment. To fulfill the contract, he designed and built an industrial scale rock tumbler that consisted of four drums, each about two feet in diameter, that were rotated by powered rollers under them. I wish I had a picture. If you’re crafty like my dad was, it was beauty in welded steel. More to the point, he could really produce volume with his setup. I think he polished rocks for that contract for a year or so and then sold the rig he built.

My dad was never "into" tumbled rocks as a craftsman. He liked more finished lapidary creations. Apart from the rocks he made for that contract, I don't think my dad ever tumbled rocks.

"I'm not really in business." That’s part of the KinesavaROCKS “Mission Statement”. But my dad WAS "in business" – for that one venture. He prepared the rocks that he tumbled ... ummmmmm ... "cost effectively". He just broke up bigger rocks with a sledge hammer.

As a great craftsman, he DID put a great polish on the rocks. He experimented with different materials – I remember sawdust and ground corn cobs – until he had a polishing recipe that was as good as it gets. Having four drums where he could keep the grit separate from the polishing helped too.

Not My Dad’s Tumbled Rocks !

The rocks shown at the top of this essay were tumbled by my good friend “Hypodactylus”, not my dad. And I have to admit, even though the raw rocks he started with came from my dad’s collection, his finished rocks are better looking. Since my dad had different goals, the rocks he tumbled often do have cracks, vugs, and sometimes attached matrix. Here’s a comparison grouping of my dad’s tumbled rocks.

Hypodactylus shared some of his secrets with me. The first is pretty obvious and the most important but still, many rock tumblers don’t follow this rule.

Carefully select the rocks you’re going to tumble and then take some time to refine the shape.

This was the main thing that my dad didn’t do. He needed volume for his contract. But since you’ll likely spend months on a batch of tumbled rocks, an investment in starting out right will be well worth it.

Hypodactylus described his process for me in a message: “It really depends on the rock, but I typically follow a process of tumble, inspect, cut/grind/chisel, tumble, repeat.” You can see that his rocks are attractively shaped and the polish shows up better.

Tumbling smaller pieces of slabs is another way to achieve the same goal. You can select an attractive part of a slab and then tumble polish it. My mother’s favorite ring – she wore it every day for decades – started out as a tumbled chunk of a slab before my dad finished it as a ring.

Hypodactylus adds, “Some rocks have cracks/pits/etc that would never grind out. So, sometimes I break rocks apart at pre-existing cracks, grind out pits/imperfections, or cut them into smaller/better sizes. Some rocks are just naturally pitted/cracked and will never be 'perfect'. For these, I try to be less perfectionistic, but I still strive for a good enough surface for the polish. I avoid smashing rocks with a hammer, unless I am just trying to create filler for the better rocks. Smashing them often just creates more cracks and problems.”

The Web is chock full of more detailed advice for beginning rock tumblers. Hypodactylus posted individual pictures of his tumbled rocks at one of the better places to go for help and advice: Rock Tumbling Hobby – RTH to friends.

RTH has built a real rock tumbling community. You can find support for people who want to learn and grow there. The site has a commercial relationship with both Amazon and Etsy. But the website managers make sure that these two vulture capitalist behemoths only have a light touch at RTH.

Hypodactylus also recommends a more commercial site: RockTumbler.com. This isn’t a friendly community like RTH, but it is a pretty good store if you need to buy something.

Here's another rock picture that Hypocactylus posted at RTH. (There are more. Check them out!) This is Lovelock Nevada Jasper. I wrote an essay about the trip when my dad and I collected these rocks. The Story of Lovelock. Another friend, sent me pictures of the dark variety of Pigeon Blood agate. Although popular and well known, Pigeon Blood is

found in widely different varieties. You can read about them at my essay Three Agates in One.

Hypodactylus tells me, “I am pretty comfortable with my process and have figured out a lot of things on my own.” That’s his best advice. You will make mistakes and your first rocks probably won’t be as nice as his. But stick with it and eventually yours will look as great as his.