Does anyone tumble their own stones?

I purchsed a bag of African saphire rocks in their entirety. I have a few very large size pieces here. I have washed them in soapy water and have revealed their color within. Some are dark/black blue color, and one of the larger ones is a cornflower.

Do I need to purchase a tumbler now? Should I just crack them open? Thoughts?

Thank you

They sound beautiful! I can't give advice, but wanted to say that my love bought me a nice rock tumbler for Christmas since we have so many bits and pieces of rough quartz from our dig in september. If you do tumble them, please let me know how they turned out, and any words of wisdom you might give regarding using a tumbler. Plus, I would LOVE to see pictures of the rough stones and the finished product!
MM

Hi Sonic
I had a rock tumbler I purchased from Michael's crafts fot about $40. You put grit, water and the rocks in the barrel and plug it in. It runs for 2 weeks straight. You change the water and the grit size at different intervals during the process, as the stones become more and more polished. I had to put the machine in the garage because of the tumbling rock racket. That's day and night for two weeks or it turns to cement in the plastic tumbler. At the end, I was very proud of the nine polished rocks, But I gave the tumbler to the thrift store. Hh

Wow!

Thank you both for the feedback. A few questions further if I may? Morticia where did you dig it sounds awesome and what were your treasures? Horace thank you! I had no idea how those things worked. I'm beginning to think of chemical alternatives to remove the sedimentary top layer.

Thoughts? Cracking it open? Removing sediment?

Thanks again

My folks were rock hounds and Horace is right, it just runs and runs and runs. Theirs was expensive because they used it all the time and the machine really take a beating.

Gosh, I have always wanted one of these, but listening to how long it takes, which does in fact make lots of sense, I think I will buy my rocks pre-polished! It must be fun, though. My best friend had one and polished a shoebox full of gorgeous stones. Then the machine broke....but we had some pretty stones to enjoy for a long time!

Horace said:

Hi Sonic
I had a rock tumbler I purchased from Michael's crafts fot about $40. You put grit, water and the rocks in the barrel and plug it in. It runs for 2 weeks straight. You change the water and the grit size at different intervals during the process, as the stones become more and more polished. I had to put the machine in the garage because of the tumbling rock racket. That's day and night for two weeks or it turns to cement in the plastic tumbler. At the end, I was very proud of the nine polished rocks, But I gave the tumbler to the thrift store. Hh

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You know, I've always wanted to have a go but never got around to it. Thanks for this, its not important enough to put up with THAT!

To be honest, I rather like rough, natural rocks and naturally polished ones from the beach so I'm easily pleased and will leave it at that.

We had one when the kids were little ...we used it many many times on rocks they found outside and ones we bought.
It was noisy and we kept ours down in the basement on top of the dryer...but i'll tell you what the day you get to open it and run water over the muddy grit and all there beautiful polished stones emerge looking nothing like the stones you put it in....well it's all worth while...the kids went nuts...they still have all of those stones in their old lunch boxes.

Horace forgot to mention that you put a special polish in in the last few days of tumbling to get that beautiful polished finish.

It's alot of fun ....Sonic I'd get one and throw a few of those sapphires in it and see how they turn out....you can buy a small tumbler for about $25.

I'm with Lark on the "go for it" side. But I'm going to take the others' advice as well with mine and put it out of earshot.

I went to a quartz mine in AR. Dig all day for $10 and keep all you find. I stayed about 3 hours.
Here's a link to some pics.


http://groups.msn.com/aeclecticstuff/shoebox.msnw?Page=1


So do you mind if I ask if you got your sapphires online?

morticia monroe said:

So do you mind if I ask if you got your sapphires online?

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Those are beautiful! And in response to your question the answer would be yes! And to further expand upon that, I fully expect them not to be "african sapphires". I opened the bag and saw rocks..I was mortified LOLOLOL. Then I read more and more online and thought ok well if I've been swindled there has to be some color behind these things. I washed them all. One has a cornflower blue to it, the rest are dark blue almost black. The cornflower was cleaned a second time and I spent about an hour laying down with it sitting on my 3rd eye that night. I cannot tell you the wild and crazy **** that happened that night. All I know is that it was like some kind of bizarre travel. Something I was not used too and visions I was not used to having. I am still trying to get used to it, small doses though.

So upon Larks suggestion I went hunting around online at the local stores and wouldn't you know it Walmart had one [I'm not about to spend good money on a heavy duty tumbler] for $24. As coincidence would also have [there are none that is] I just got a gift card for the same store. It will arrive at the store in a few weeks and I didn't have to pay anything. So sapphires or not, I have something here! I will take before and after pictures though.