to start tumbling the first thing you have to do of course is to obtain a tumbler it is better to likely spend a bit more money and get a good quality tumbler than to buy the cheapest one on the marketplace we use lower tone tumblers and we've had a great deal of success with them and we feel that they're of a quality that is good for the job this is a small 3 pound tumbler here that we have that is likely the most economical and the most popular one that we do sell so to tumble the stone the stones we have to start of course with being able to obtain the stones that we need in order to polish them the rock has to be of similar hardnesses so that we can put them in the tumbler and one Rock is not going to wear away the other Rock the other consideration is that we have to have them broken down so that they're 1 inch or blender and a lot of them would have to be under that 1 inch so that again we get maximum results from the tumbling the tumbling process is a minimum of 4 weeks 24 hours a day 7 days a week so once it's on you leave it but we do have different stages that the tumbling goes through and we'll explain those as we get on first off we have to learn that how to open the tumbler barrel this is what we start with in terms of taking the lid off it's handy to use the washer to just help dry the lid up sometimes it can be rather stubborn and once we do that we break the seal and take the lid off there we go this is a solid rubber barrel so it'll last virtually forever meantime I've taken the broken down Rock to go into the tumbler so if we start with a large piece of rock like this we're going to take it using my trusty rock hammer I can set it down into a box and the sides on it and break it down so I can have it of the size Lots and having sights on the Box Tops the pieces from flowing all over the countryside so that you can have them on there and ready to go so now one time satisfied with breaking the rough down I then take it and fill it into a tumbler well the tumbler to get to get best results must be 2/3 so now I filled my tumbler to about the to surge level inside the barrel at this point I'm going to pour water in it till it just comes to the top of the stones there we go it just really covers the stones and at that point then this is a three pound tumbler so we're going to put in the appropriate amount of grip and that would be three Etape three tablespoons the manual may show a little more but I found that three will work quite successfully till this point we have our coarse grit that we start with which is silicon carbide and if I put my three tablespoons of forthwith in there now my tumblers ready to go so now I want to put the lid back on to it and putting the lid on push it down firmly pull this open just to make sure there's no air trapped inside or at least you know as much as I can I put the lid on squeeze it down so it's down nice and firmly on all sides and taking the washer and the nut I'm going to screw that on tool it's firmly in place not up really tight just nice and firm then I take my tumblr I have here I put it in and plug it in turn it on I suggest that you record when you started it so it's you don't have to try and remember the date they should run for about seven days in the quartz grit and then we have a medium grit fine grit and polish and each of them do take seven days for a total of 28 days I guess so at this point after the seven days we're going to take it and open it up again again break the seal here let's open it up and at this point we'll find that our barrel is only about now have fun which isn't quite what we want because we would like it that two-thirds full because that is the point in which it most efficiently works towards grinding down the stone so at this point when I take the stones out and wash them all much more rounded than when I started so when I take and dump these out the best thing to do is put them into a sieve if you have a colander take them wash them very carefully so there's absolutely no grit on them and if any grit gets caught inside little cracks and crevices take a toothbrush scrub it out wash them then wash the inside of the barrel very carefully to make sure it is totally clean and then we can put our stones back in and again we want to fill it up to the 2/3 level but if I take it it may only be half full so now I have a a little bit of a problem most of the grinding away in the loss of material occurs in the coarse grind because what I'm doing when I coarse grinding it is producing a lot of mud as it wears away so that mud you must treat as mud meaning do not put it down the drain so you must just take it outside and put it in the garden do whatever you want but just remember treat it like you wouldn't mud now then the stones again were only coming up to half-full so what I might do in this situation to solve the problem is run another load in the coarse grit so now the next week at the end of the next week I would have two loads that have gone through the coarse grit now this time when I fill it up I should have more than enough material to fill it to that 2/3 level and one of the things of course that this I should have mentioned earlier is that the stone that you use must all be of similar hardness if you don't you're going to have problems the soft stones will never polish the hard ones we'll just keep wearing the soft ones away and then you don't get the results that you want hence you must be sure that there are similar hardnesses and if it's really soft material like sandstone or shale or limestone don't even bother tumbling because it will give you satisfactory results now once I have filled that tumbler 2/3 fall I'm ready for the medium grit which again is the same type of thing I will take my trusty tablespoon and put another three tablespoons of grit in here along with the water which just the stones and now I'm ready for my medium grit to do its work so now I close up the tumbler again just like we did before we let her put the barrel onto the machine and we're going to let it run for another week when the week is done we take it off open it up again take out or take out our stones wash them very carefully in a town calendar again or whatever you have so that you can make sure that the stones come up totally clean and shiny do also that to the barrel clean it up clean everything spotless because if any grit gets carried over from one stage to the next it's going to cause problems especially when we go to the polishing stage we do not want any grit in there or it will never polish so now that we've finished a medium grit we do exactly the same thing we fill it up two-thirds full again we add the water to cover to that level we put in our fine grit the three tablespoons of fine grit again put the lid on it and we're ready to let it roll again and that will take another week for the fine grit to be finished now after the fine grit we have to be a little more careful that we really do make sure that it is completely clean both the barrels and all the stones before we go into the polish stage now for polishing it's the same procedure over again we are going to take fill the tumbler with the stone onto two thirds again we're going to put the water in and of course or polish now the polish and says three tablespoons we're going to put in a four tablespoons this time a little more grit and a little more polish and put the lid on it let it run for that week we're going to take the stones out or at least take the lid off look at the stones and decide at that point if they're polished enough if you find that they're not polished to your liking then let them put the lid back on and put it back on the machine and let's let it run for another several days because it's certainly not going to hurt it and then you can check again see where your polishes when the pot when that stage is over and you look at your stone you're happy then again you're going to take them out scrub them up you can even put a little bit of dish soap with them and that will help clean them up so that when you're finished you have your bright shiny stones and that basically is what's involved in order to get you started in tumbling one of the last things I do want to mention though is in the polishing stage when you are finished you can keep the polish pour it into a jar and save it to the next time you cannot do that with the grits and Paul of the grits the coarse medium of fine grit are a one-time usage so when you're finished the air garbage their mud and treat them as mud the polish should keep that use it over it as long as it has not been contaminated with any grit and that basically is what is required you