Anyone got Stone/rock Tumbling as a hobby? Well I began yesturday!
Here is the palce to disscus tips and tricks, techniques, stones to tumble and of course good links for stones.(rough stones)

I like agate, ametrine and Lapis Lazuli seems nice

sounds like oodles and oodles of fun!

maybe I'll try it myself sometime

Depending on where you are here are some good links to get you started:
a seller in england: http://www.ukge.co.uk/

then for rough rock:
http://www.roughandtumble.com/roughlist/
http://www.thegemshop.com/retail.htm#wyjade
http://www.ambericawest.com/rough.html

Tips on tumbling:
http://www.rocktumblinghobby.com/tips/tips.html

Here is a seller in the USA:
http://www.dadsrockshop.com/

Hope I dident scare you with all info

The best is that you later can sell it as loose rocks or put on i.e. rings, necklases etc.

Although I collect rocks, my tumbler broke years ago. I enjoy quartz, onyx and obsedian, as well as many other pyroclastic rocks.

Ha your a lucky man! enjoy quartz it's a common mineral if I remember right..
Yeah obsidian is nice espacilly "rainbow obsidian".
I looked up some pyroclastic rocks a list follow for you:
Hellandite
Vicanite
Walfordite
Mottanaite
Ciprianiite

just to name a few..
I like the quartz with inclusions of other colors (i.e. red,yellow, blue etc.)
agate is lovely (it's a variety of quatz)

I found out if you want a better polish on your stones add a tabel spoon of sugar in the last polish.
Add some baking powder to to get rid of oxides etc (?) at least it makes it better. (I used it in the "middle polish" 400-grit)

I've always wanted to do this, but now that I live in an apartment, I think it might be too noisy for the neighbors (curse them! ). Maybe some day.........

I think that rubber barrels woulden't be to noisy, although I have plastic..It's not that bad actually.at least not my tumbler..
Ha ha yeah neighbors..

I started to get into this actually when I was a lot younger, but the noise... yeah... my dad complained. So I went from tumbling in my room, to the garage, to the garbage. They made me give up my hobby.

yeah I know, parents...
here it is just the opposite my father helped me to get into this hobby.

When cleaning the rocks for the next "polishing step" you can use "topz" (such you can use for your ears) and some soap.
works great to remove grit from holes,cracks etc.

This sounds like a very nice hobby. I like wandering and looking at things too.

I knew a man once. He drilled wells for a living, and was a 'witcher'. But he did other things associated with the earth and one of them was to collect 'rocks'. He showed me one time a rock that was somewhat hollow and split in half. Inside it looked like sparkling crystals against the outer walls. They were of different colors and it was very pretty. I can't recall what he called it.

Sounds like a "geode".what colors? (if you remember)

Ever Looked up Malachite?? It's beautiful!
Rhodochrosite is also impressive!

Bought a few new rocks...

ok excuse my ignorance but what's tumbling? I stumbled across this and now my interest has been pricked... the info I've gleaned from above is - it involves special stones (why are they special), noise, some sort of receptical that you roll them about in. is that right?

Reg

me too! interest piqued! but what is tumbling?

http://www.rocktumblinghobby.com/

While I don't do any stone tumbling (although I've considered it) I have an obsession for gemstones, agates, jaspers etc...

You always hear about diamonds this, rubies that, emeralds blah blah blah... Pfft, give me some of the lesser known, odd, colorful and interesting stones.

Honestly, some of the most breathtaking stones are worth next to nothing. But, some can be quite valuble; learning what stone you have and are about to tumble can help you decide whether or not to actually have it faceted, cabochoned, or drilled for jewelry.

This is one of my favorite agates of all time, called Botswana Agate (this one has been beautifully faceted)

Thanks Chaoszerq for the link and I agree with you MissWells that the lesser known stones can be the best, lovely stone by the way.

Am I right in thinking this is more of an American hobby?

Oh I don't know, there are rock hounds pretty much everywhere I think. I know looking for cool rocks is pretty popular in the USA, we actually have quite a variety of cool stones you can find pretty easily. It's also a very popular hobby in places like Australia and South Africa too.

I did a quick search, and it looks like rockhounding in the UK is a little less than popular if only because the UK doesn't have a ton of minerals to be found. The UK has a lot of fossils, which seems to be the more popular things to hunt for (they are well preserved in your chalk, clay and dolomite soils). As far as semi-precious rocks, it looks like about the only crystalized (aka, quartz, beryl, etc...) that's found in any real quantity in England is Flourite. Very pretty stuff. England just doesn't have volcanic activity, and in many cases, it's volcanic activity that causes large deposits of minerals and cool rocks.

That being said, any rock that you think is pretty can be tumbled and polished... if I remember right, I saw some pretty and tumblable stones around the Brighton area

Lovely agate MissMel.

SLightly OT from tumbling, but I saw a travel doc one time about some waterfalls in Venezuala (95% sure) that were made all of red jasper. Amazingly beautiful!

In the UK it's often called Lapidary, you can buy a small tumbler of ebay.

Red Jasper or any kind of the dozens of types of jasper are really fun to tumble, they're all gorgeous! I used jasper in a lot of my jewelry! Red jasper is cool because it's often shot natually with other colors including a metalic gold, blue, or even a dark black.

Here's a picture of the Jasper falls in Venezuala:




Here's what it looks like tumbled, cut, and polished:

It sounds great, I'd love to look into this. I spent much of my spare time in Cornwall - which is built on granite. I'm going to keep my peepers open for any pretty rock once I get back there in the spring... I'll probably be polishing any old common or garden "stone" knowing me.

Is there an 'extreme version' of stone tumbling, for all us who are adrenaline junkies?

Tumbling stone is okay BUT rolling boulders is awesome!

You get in a giant tumbler with the rocks.

Granite can be tumbled but it has mixed results. It's a combination of both soft and hard minerals. Generally only the hardest minerals will polish out in granite (you can even see evidence of that in some kitchen counters). But I bet you can find stones like "river stones" or "skipping rocks" they're the semi smooth stones you find on the beach and around rivers and they would polish nicely.

I made a necklace pendant once out of a tumbled/polished river stone and sterling silver wire, it was pretty.



Sure Billy! Would you like me to arrange that for you?

Cement truck + half man boulders + Billy = Exreme rock tumbling. LOL

I didn't know this was here! I LOVE stone tumblng even though it is a lengthy procedure. I started doing it for fun with my son years ago (like a mommy/son activity). Now I am hooked. I also am collecting already tumbled stones. I have a couple of decorative jars filled with all kinds of brilliant and vibrant stones. I think I have one of almost everyone mentioned (not MMW's one though). I also have ton's of agate, amethyst, hemitite, peridot, citrine, rose quartz, fool's gold, carnelian, moonstone, both zebra and red jasper, sodalite, onyx and a bunch more I can't remember the names... lapus... okay that's it for now. I should put them all out and take some pictures. I LOVE THEM and I love that my son and I either tumble or now buy them together. It's very cool.

We have crystals around this area, I want to start looking for them in the spring. I bought a couple from a woman who gathers them herself. Maybe I can incorporate them into sculptures, we'll see.

That would be so cool. Sort of like mosaic's? NICE!! I love that.

I have to get off the computer and get back to my pastels too!!

LOL, I have a conte 1/3 of the way done sitting right beside me, I do some and then step back, take a break, and then do some more. Sometiems my pictures take a while, LOL

you sound like me... now I've decided to visit my stone place tomorrow to see if they have anything good in... LMAO!

LOL! I'm thinking that crystal and copper would look beautiful together, oh, bother, here I go again!

Thanks for the info - if you ever get the chance, I'd love to see some pics?

Reg

I have mostly jewelry I've created from stones I've purchased since I haven't done any tumbling of my own in years (really since I was a kid)... Although this thread has made me consider taking it up again. For a little more fun... here's a link to a really cool store in Seattle near where I live. A friend of my mother's owns it:

http://www.scratchpatchusa.com/

I think it's actually a very small franchise, but there are 4 or 5 stores total in So. Africa, Australia, Canada and the USA. They have traveling stores that go to England and other European countries. This place is one of the most fun things you can do as an adult or even more fun, with kids! They have bins and bins of polished So. African stones to roll around in, pick your favorites and take 'em home with ya! It's great fun.

Here are two photos (bad ones)

the one that looks clearish is mostly whats called B grade Aquamarine stones. They're very light blue, very watery looking, and nearly gemstone grade for faceting but not quite.

The other is also aquamarine, C grade. It's nearly opaque. The C grade are actually my favorite with all their lucious colors, faint tans and brows, creamy ivories and of course the lovely blue of aquamarine. The other stones are coin pearls and dyed fresh water pearls and there are tiny african hand rolled copper beads in there too.

Both pieces have several austrian cut crystal by Swarovski.

Booo, it wouldn't let me post both pics. here's the second one:

Those are beautiful pieces, MissWells. Thanks for posting the photos and the info.

Reg

This sounds like such an interesting hobby....I didn't even realize it was as popular as it is...I was talking to some of the teens at hockey the other night and asked them if they knew about this....Wound up they all have been doing it since they're little....Seems like something I would love to do with the grandkids....They have a huge collection of rocks now ( I don't think any of them are significant), but they fall out of their pants constantly when they're getting changed.. ..It's a good start and thanks for all the info.......By the way Miss Wells, love the pictures.............

I see I have missed a lot of action...Well kind of...
Anyways what is tumbling someone asked:

You have a tumbler (lol could you figure that one out?) into a "barrel" you put your rocks they should be close in hardness.(Moh's scale)
You run them in grits a sort of polishing powder/compound?
Then you run them in different roughnesses aka you start out with a rough(say 60) then you go to a finer (say 80)
and so on until you got some very fine polishing stuff.(like cerium oxide)

If you want extremes...Try it with sand paper that should keep you occupied for a while!
No but try rock hounding it also can be enjoyable.

Cheers,
Eu