How to Polish Rocks at Home

Colorful rocks can be a decorative addition to your home environment. Today you can find beautifully polished rocks added to a number of home decor, be it candles, flower vases, or yard decorations. I prefer to use a rock tumbler rather than the slower, more time consuming hand polishing method.
Using a rock tumbler works on the premise that you use progressively finer grits and add polish until the desired shape and shine is achieved. Before purchasing your rock tumbler there are several features to consider: do you want the standard model or the hobbyist/professional model? While debating how much and what type of model you want to buy consider what size rocks will you be using, how easy/difficult will it be to find replacement parts, how quickly do you need the rocks polished, how quiet must the tumbler be?

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• rock tumbler
• rocks of various sizes, shapes, and colors
• water
• coarse abrasive grit
• medium abrasive grit
• fine grit
• polish
• plastic pellets
• non-abrasive soap bar

1. 
    
   professional rock tumber

   Most tumblers come with their own specific instruction manual. Be sure to review this before proceeding as each company may have its own individual precautions or steps. Ensure that your tumbler is set up and in a location where it will be able to run for the allotted amount of time (some require the machine to run for 24 hours or longer).

2. Carefully examine the rocks to be tumbled. You are looking to ensure that they are all roughly the same hardness, various sizes, and inspecting for any flaws (cracked or deep voids, irregular shapes that the tumbler would not be able to smooth). Any rocks that do not pass the initial inspection may be broken at the voids/cracks or hand shaped/polished.

3. Now that the rocks have been sorted fill the tumbler barrel 2/3 to 3/4 full of rocks (or follow tumbler instruction manual).

4. 
    

   Now that the rocks have been added it is time to determine what type of grit is required. If the rocks have jagged edges or need to be shaped use a coarse grit. If the rocks have been previously tumbled or are somewhat polished (i.e. found at the beach, lake or river and have been smoothed considerably) a finer grit may be used. The weight of the rocks will determine how much of the grit and soap will be added.

5. 
    

   Add water to the barrel with rocks and grit. There should be enough water to reach the top of the rocks but not cover them.

6. Once water has been added it is necessary to wipe dry the lid and edges of the container. A tight seal is necessary when you place the barrel into the tumbler. Place the lid on the barrel and ensure it is sealed.

7. We're almost there! Place the barrel into the tumbler and start the motor. Once it starts you may want to watch if for a few moments and ensure a tight seal was formed between the barrel and the lid. There should not be any liquid that leaks out. If necessary stop the motor and re-dry the barrel and lid to reform a seal.

8. Now that a few hours have passed return to recheck the tumbler. Make sure everything is still running smoothly to obtain smooth and polished rocks as the final result.

9. Your instruction manual may say differently but I suggest letting the tumbler run 24/7 for 7 days. During this time you can stop and check on it, release gas from the barrel, whatever you desire. If you do remove the barrel please ensure that you dry and reform a tight seal each time.

10. Once a week or so has passed the rocks are ready to be removed and inspected. Remove the barrel and empty the contents into a collander (drain the water and mud off the rocks) but do not let the solution go down the drain unless you plan on reading an ehow on how to clear a drain of mud. When this mud slurry of rock pieces and grit harden it makes a cement like substance that would be sure to cause any plumber a headache!

11. Rinse the mud and grit off the rocks, remember this should be down outside as you down want that mess going down the drains within your house. Look through the rocks, this is essentially the shape they will be. If you want them to be rounder consider putting them back in the tumbler with a coarse grit(fresh grit of course); if they are shaped to your liking reinsert the rocks for the same flaws as earlier, clean the rocks, barrell, and lid before repeating the tumbling procedure with the finer grit.

12. Ready to polish, well almost now its the pre-polish step. Using the finest grain grit possible with some polishing pellets follow the previous tumbling steps and run the machine for another 7 days, 24 hours a day.

13. 
     

    Again, remove and rinse off the rocks of grit, grim, pellets, and other undesired materials. Once all the rocks, the barrel, and lid are cleaned its time to start the polishing process. Follow the chart and add polish, water and plastic pellets allowing the chamber to run for 10 days, 24 hours a day. When removed the rocks should appear glossy when dried, if not repeat the step.

14. 
     

    You're almost there! Again, I know it's your favorite thing, with a cleaned barrel, lid and rocks refill the barrell with water, rocks, plastic pellets, and soap (the soap should not contain any abrasive ingredients...I recommend Classic Ivory Soap). With the bar soap shave or cut the soap into small pieces using the chart as a guideline to the amount to be added. Using liquid soap is not recommended as they generally contain materials that harm the polish, ruin the seal in the barrel and reverse the process that has taken weeks to complete.

15. Allow the soap mixture to run for 1-2 days, wow what a short amount of time compared to the weeks the rocks have been running in the tumbler. The process should be complete now and once removed and dried you will have a container full of polished rocks waiting to be displayed.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not overfill your barrel. The motors inside the rock tumblers are weighted to tumble specific maximum amount of weight. To ensure that your barrell is not overweight for you motor consider weighing it after water is added to the barrell.
• Do not rinse rocks or drain contents through household drains.
• While rinsing the muddy solution off tumbled rocks I recommend wearing eye protection (goggles, safety glasses, etc.) to prevent any dirty splash back.