My mum spent much of our youth, upon return from yearly holidays to her small seaside home town, tumbling rocks. We were kinda cluttered people growing up, so among other things (an extensive sci-fi collection, hundreds of kitchen gadgets, every microcomputer under the sun) we always had little piles and containers of beautiful shiny rocks strewn around the place. I never had the patience for the tumbling process, but on every beach I considered it my responsibility to find the most intriguing shapes and colours of rocks, fill my pockets, and bring them home. She died this year. We were supposed to scatter her ashes on that beach but my dad refused for inscrutable reasons. And I have a big pile of boring, dull rocks, that neither my mum, nor the relentless sea, is ever going to transform.
Sorry for your loss. I hope you find good closure when you're ready - your rock collection is a great treasure and might serve as either a memento for you or a surrogate for ashes if you wanted to spread them on your nearby beach. Kind of a nice metaphor for a life well lived; collected from the chaos of the beach, polished up, and eventually returned, hopefully leaving things a little bit better.
I have a rock tumbler that I got as a present. It's neat, but this page is right - it takes a long time, and you end up using a lot of grit as well, and it must be done in order. Oh, and did I mention that it's noisy? Definitely not a hobby for ... me.
But! One thing I have found interesting is that you can make your own "sea glass", by breaking wine or beer bottles, and tumbling the big-ish chunks. The thicker the glass, the better, of course. I'm experimenting with just using some sand as the grit material; the glass doesn't come out shiny and smooth, but it definitely wears down the sharp edges.
(And I run the tumbler thing in our detached garage.)
I add ceramic fillers to make sure the barrel is at least 3/4 full. It makes very little noise that way; I can't hear it when standing outside the door of the room I'm running it in.
Thanks for this tip. I'm planning on buying a friend a tumbler for xmas, and if this works as advertised, I feel this would be a must have as part of the gift.
Edit: of course, TFA mentions this as well for those willing to click the link <facepalm>
You can pick up Silicon Carbide grit pretty cheap online ( impure moissanite ).
I have several tumblers, but have yet to finish the process of making polished gems- but it is still on my bucket list :). I have made lots of "sea glass: though. I have taken quite a bit to the local beach ( about 40 miles north of Palm Beach Fl. ) I toss it into the surf, figuring it will make some beachcombers happy. My logic is that once it has been in the ocean a few days, it will actually be sea glass. I would not make that claim for any of the glass that comes straight out of the tumbler though. Next time you visit a craft show and see folks with "Sea glass" Jewelry, note if they have separate displays for "real" sea glass, and man made.
I've been tumbling rocks with my kids for about a year now. Two tips that made it actually sustainable: (1) ceramic media is a must-have, not optional - cuts the noise by 80% and you can run it indoors, and (2) skip the "perfect rocks" hunt and just tumble broken glass bottles instead. Takes 2-3 weeks vs 2-3 months, looks amazing, and my kids can actually see results before they lose interest. We keep a jar of the sea glass pieces on the kitchen counter and it's become a surprisingly nice conversation starter when guests visit.
I have strongly negative connotations with rock tumblers. When I was about 8 I saw one in a store and thought it would turn regular rocks into precious stones. One of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.
Funny, was just thinking about this the other day as my daughter is currently obsessed with rocks. Did some research and.. nah, I'll just buy polished rocks off the jungle store.
A long time ago I had a brief rock-hounding phase and found some cool rocks. Polished them on a friend's polishing setup. That was pretty fun. I'd rather get back into that vs tumbling.
I had a rock hounding phase in my life ... It was something fun to do with the family and we have a lot of interesting rocks in BC.
I built my own rock tumbler using some wood, hardware store bits, and an old geared DC motor... I also used commercial rock tumblers. Those worked better ;)
It takes a really long time to tumble rocks, you have to go through the grits like a week or two at a time, and they sort of come out without a lot of character. Hand polishing them (with power grinders and polishers) is a lot more satisfying and you can make them into your own. That does require more equipment though.
My first tumbler was built from a lawnmower my dad discarded when I was around 11 years old. I buried it in the forest and topped up the gas whenever I had time. It really did not work at all.
Lots of comments are talking about how loud rock tumbling is. I have an interest and space in my basement but I'm reticent to pull the trigger without knowing if it's going to be intolerably loud upstairs. Does anybody know how many dB the process actually generated?
I got this one a few months ago and have been running it in my basement directly under my living room, separated only by the floor and a bit of insulation. Can't hear it at all. It's been working well and it's a fun low-investment hobby. I live on a glacial moraine so there are lots of unique rocks in my backyard, and my son enjoys digging for them. https://a.co/d/4HSnVVX
I worry about heat dissipation, but maybe that's considered.
When I printed my "underground newspaper" on a dot matrix printer, back in high school, I thought I'd get away with so much printing without my dad knowing by putting a cardboard box over the printer to deaden the sound. It worked until it didn't. Luckily the printer had a thermistor on the printhead and just stopped versus continuing to brainlessly grind until seizing-up.
I’m making one out of a treadmill that I snagged over Covid (and subsequently never used)! Idea is to make a jig to hold the tumbler in place. Maybe make it removable so I can still choose to not use the treadmill.
If you want a cheap trick, take the cloudy stones and put them in a clear glass jar with water. They are usually lustrous when wet, and the jar can serve as a decorative item in a bathroom or something. I've thought of coloring the water, too, to see how that turns out.
Most people do this so that they can eat the rocks afterward. They are shiny and very nutritious, and it strengthens the teeth. It's normal for some teeth to break off during this phase, but a) you already have colorful rocks to replace the teeth with, and b) old broken teeth can now be placed inside the tumbler for smoothing. 9/10 geologists agree that unsmoothed teeth that aren't made of rock are the number one cause of oral hygiene problems
You can train the smart ones [1], and even wirelessly remotely control them with a mobile app [2], as long as you restrict yourself to commanding them to do things they were going to do anyway, just like cats.
Kudos to the Stoned Republicans of the High Frontier Panel and The Heritage Foundation for their groundbreaking earth shattering work on Smart Rocks!
>In March 1988, Teller and Wood were able to directly brief President Reagan on the concept, taking the model pebble with them and theatrically hiding it under a black cloth when reporters were allowed to take pictures. Teller reiterated that the price for the system would be on the order of $10 billion.
Indeed spending time on things that bring you pleasure but other people may not understand isn't part of that grind mindset, if you aren't grinding you should be sleeping and honestly if you are sleeping a healthy amount you aren't grinding enough.
Or something - "because I find it enjoyable" is a perfectly self contained reason as long as you aren't hurting anyone else (or yourself).
I have several children in my life who are going through a shiny objects phase. I ask them to give me rocks that they like, and then I tumble those rocks for them. They really seem to like it.
People like the way they look and feel, and I imagine they get some satisfaction out of having turned a rough rock into something beautiful. They put them in their house where they can admire them, and others can admire them. Many are probably given away as gifts. Some might be used to create larger works of art, such as earrings or other jewelry.
My son and I get a kick out of it. For a while he was selling them on the street outside our town home, and that was absurdly lucrative for him. He has made around $200 so far. I'm pretty sure it's because he's cute. In any case, it's just a fun thing to do and experiment with, learn, and explore.
I've also thrown a bunch into an aquarium as 'river stones', because it's illegal to take them from rivers here and buying them is way too expensive. Those are just bland, small pieces of dark granite to simulate the environment the aquarium is modeled after.
After carefully weighing, cataloging, chanting, and valuation, the custom is to skip them into river of their birth. (This is why river rocks are so smooth.)
My mum spent much of our youth, upon return from yearly holidays to her small seaside home town, tumbling rocks. We were kinda cluttered people growing up, so among other things (an extensive sci-fi collection, hundreds of kitchen gadgets, every microcomputer under the sun) we always had little piles and containers of beautiful shiny rocks strewn around the place. I never had the patience for the tumbling process, but on every beach I considered it my responsibility to find the most intriguing shapes and colours of rocks, fill my pockets, and bring them home. She died this year. We were supposed to scatter her ashes on that beach but my dad refused for inscrutable reasons. And I have a big pile of boring, dull rocks, that neither my mum, nor the relentless sea, is ever going to transform.
Sorry for your loss. I hope you find good closure when you're ready - your rock collection is a great treasure and might serve as either a memento for you or a surrogate for ashes if you wanted to spread them on your nearby beach. Kind of a nice metaphor for a life well lived; collected from the chaos of the beach, polished up, and eventually returned, hopefully leaving things a little bit better.
I have a rock tumbler that I got as a present. It's neat, but this page is right - it takes a long time, and you end up using a lot of grit as well, and it must be done in order. Oh, and did I mention that it's noisy? Definitely not a hobby for ... me.
But! One thing I have found interesting is that you can make your own "sea glass", by breaking wine or beer bottles, and tumbling the big-ish chunks. The thicker the glass, the better, of course. I'm experimenting with just using some sand as the grit material; the glass doesn't come out shiny and smooth, but it definitely wears down the sharp edges.
(And I run the tumbler thing in our detached garage.)
I add ceramic fillers to make sure the barrel is at least 3/4 full. It makes very little noise that way; I can't hear it when standing outside the door of the room I'm running it in.
I like the glass idea, that sounds fun.
> ceramic fillers
Thanks for this tip. I'm planning on buying a friend a tumbler for xmas, and if this works as advertised, I feel this would be a must have as part of the gift.
Edit: of course, TFA mentions this as well for those willing to click the link <facepalm>
It's a long article :)
You can pick up Silicon Carbide grit pretty cheap online ( impure moissanite ). I have several tumblers, but have yet to finish the process of making polished gems- but it is still on my bucket list :). I have made lots of "sea glass: though. I have taken quite a bit to the local beach ( about 40 miles north of Palm Beach Fl. ) I toss it into the surf, figuring it will make some beachcombers happy. My logic is that once it has been in the ocean a few days, it will actually be sea glass. I would not make that claim for any of the glass that comes straight out of the tumbler though. Next time you visit a craft show and see folks with "Sea glass" Jewelry, note if they have separate displays for "real" sea glass, and man made.
My girlfriend loves sea glass and has a rock tumbler. I think we will try this, thanks!
I've been tumbling rocks with my kids for about a year now. Two tips that made it actually sustainable: (1) ceramic media is a must-have, not optional - cuts the noise by 80% and you can run it indoors, and (2) skip the "perfect rocks" hunt and just tumble broken glass bottles instead. Takes 2-3 weeks vs 2-3 months, looks amazing, and my kids can actually see results before they lose interest. We keep a jar of the sea glass pieces on the kitchen counter and it's become a surprisingly nice conversation starter when guests visit.
I have strongly negative connotations with rock tumblers. When I was about 8 I saw one in a store and thought it would turn regular rocks into precious stones. One of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.
I hope you didn't buy Sea Monkeys next.
Or XRay Specs
I was lucky to live in an area with a lot of interesting semi-precious stones that you could just find by looking around.
I wasn’t aware that there were places that had semi-precious stones just lying around. Where are you from?
Anywhere with granite will have lots of quartz of various types
Funny, was just thinking about this the other day as my daughter is currently obsessed with rocks. Did some research and.. nah, I'll just buy polished rocks off the jungle store.
A long time ago I had a brief rock-hounding phase and found some cool rocks. Polished them on a friend's polishing setup. That was pretty fun. I'd rather get back into that vs tumbling.
I had a rock hounding phase in my life ... It was something fun to do with the family and we have a lot of interesting rocks in BC.
I built my own rock tumbler using some wood, hardware store bits, and an old geared DC motor... I also used commercial rock tumblers. Those worked better ;)
It takes a really long time to tumble rocks, you have to go through the grits like a week or two at a time, and they sort of come out without a lot of character. Hand polishing them (with power grinders and polishers) is a lot more satisfying and you can make them into your own. That does require more equipment though.
My first tumbler was built from a lawnmower my dad discarded when I was around 11 years old. I buried it in the forest and topped up the gas whenever I had time. It really did not work at all.
Loved the twist ending.
Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
What does that have to do with attempts at DIY rock tumblers?
the lawnmower is the link
...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower.
Lots of comments are talking about how loud rock tumbling is. I have an interest and space in my basement but I'm reticent to pull the trigger without knowing if it's going to be intolerably loud upstairs. Does anybody know how many dB the process actually generated?
Edit: Finally got to a PC to do some search-engine investigation and found this: https://rocktumbler.com/tips/how-much-noise-does-a-tumbler-m...
I got this one a few months ago and have been running it in my basement directly under my living room, separated only by the floor and a bit of insulation. Can't hear it at all. It's been working well and it's a fun low-investment hobby. I live on a glacial moraine so there are lots of unique rocks in my backyard, and my son enjoys digging for them. https://a.co/d/4HSnVVX
I let Home Assistant turn it on once the house is empty, and then off once someone is home.
Rock tumbler enclosure, soundproofing box.
I worry about heat dissipation, but maybe that's considered.
When I printed my "underground newspaper" on a dot matrix printer, back in high school, I thought I'd get away with so much printing without my dad knowing by putting a cardboard box over the printer to deaden the sound. It worked until it didn't. Luckily the printer had a thermistor on the printhead and just stopped versus continuing to brainlessly grind until seizing-up.
It's not that bad. Put a box over it with a blanket or two and you'll be fine.
I have favorited this thread. It has the best comments I have read in 10 years of hn.
I want to go and build a tumbler now. I'm imagining it is another good use for an old sewing machine (I hoard a few for projects)
I’m making one out of a treadmill that I snagged over Covid (and subsequently never used)! Idea is to make a jig to hold the tumbler in place. Maybe make it removable so I can still choose to not use the treadmill.
You did see how long it takes, right?
I think I like this post because, simpler things, simpler times.
I see a missed opportunity to use the domain rocktumblr.com.
Loved this as a kid. But as a parent, even putting it in the garage is just too much noise for my household, haha!
We had one last year and followed the directions exactly. The stones came out very smooth but cloudy and dull. Not sure what went wrong.
If you want a cheap trick, take the cloudy stones and put them in a clear glass jar with water. They are usually lustrous when wet, and the jar can serve as a decorative item in a bathroom or something. I've thought of coloring the water, too, to see how that turns out.
That's cool and all but ... what's the point? What do you do with these rocks afterwords?
Most people do this so that they can eat the rocks afterward. They are shiny and very nutritious, and it strengthens the teeth. It's normal for some teeth to break off during this phase, but a) you already have colorful rocks to replace the teeth with, and b) old broken teeth can now be placed inside the tumbler for smoothing. 9/10 geologists agree that unsmoothed teeth that aren't made of rock are the number one cause of oral hygiene problems
+1 can confirm. Also the best rock candy is made with actual rocks.
You can train the smart ones [1], and even wirelessly remotely control them with a mobile app [2], as long as you restrict yourself to commanding them to do things they were going to do anyway, just like cats.
Kudos to the Stoned Republicans of the High Frontier Panel and The Heritage Foundation for their groundbreaking earth shattering work on Smart Rocks!
[1] Brilliant Pebbles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles#Smart_Rocks
>In March 1988, Teller and Wood were able to directly brief President Reagan on the concept, taking the model pebble with them and theatrically hiding it under a black cloth when reporters were allowed to take pictures. Teller reiterated that the price for the system would be on the order of $10 billion.
Photographic proof (not AI generated): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brilliant_Pebbles_present... Source: https://highfrontier.org/march-8-2016-star-wars-back-to-the-...
[2] Pet Rock Remote Control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0FAKkaisg
Featuring my Finger Flicking Pocket PC Pie Menus!
As best I can tell you can’t even properly monetise this or get VC funding. Seems like a waste of effort.
Indeed spending time on things that bring you pleasure but other people may not understand isn't part of that grind mindset, if you aren't grinding you should be sleeping and honestly if you are sleeping a healthy amount you aren't grinding enough.
Or something - "because I find it enjoyable" is a perfectly self contained reason as long as you aren't hurting anyone else (or yourself).
I have several children in my life who are going through a shiny objects phase. I ask them to give me rocks that they like, and then I tumble those rocks for them. They really seem to like it.
People like the way they look and feel, and I imagine they get some satisfaction out of having turned a rough rock into something beautiful. They put them in their house where they can admire them, and others can admire them. Many are probably given away as gifts. Some might be used to create larger works of art, such as earrings or other jewelry.
My son and I get a kick out of it. For a while he was selling them on the street outside our town home, and that was absurdly lucrative for him. He has made around $200 so far. I'm pretty sure it's because he's cute. In any case, it's just a fun thing to do and experiment with, learn, and explore.
I've also thrown a bunch into an aquarium as 'river stones', because it's illegal to take them from rivers here and buying them is way too expensive. Those are just bland, small pieces of dark granite to simulate the environment the aquarium is modeled after.
No, they're minerals! Jesus teiferer, I've got some geodes coming that are very delicate, alright?
After carefully weighing, cataloging, chanting, and valuation, the custom is to skip them into river of their birth. (This is why river rocks are so smooth.)
Is shiny!
I mean, it's a hobby? It doesn't necessarily have to have a point other than to enrich your existence.