Maxx Explore Rock Tumbler Kit (Gem Polisher Machine w/ 6 Jewelery Settings)

Chicago Electric $69.99 [harborfreight.com]

We bought this for my daughter. Utter garbage. Started slipping on day 2, stopped turning at all by day 3. Obnoxiously loud. Threw it away and bought her the Chicago Electric one from Harbor Freight, which is fantastic and built to last a loooong time.

Have two of these, as well as some other tumblers. The only thing with the Chicago Electric double is you have to really watch how much you load in each barrel. Wouldn't recommend filling them beyond the halfway mark.

If you want to save money on grit for early stage polishing, try walnut shells. Don't buy it as media though. I get parakeet litter [amazon.com], which is the same thing, but it's just marketed as litter, so much less expensive.

If you're looking to save money, don't even bother with walnut shells. They have a Mohs hardness of ~3 and will do absolutely nothing to your rocks.

You can tumble the rocks in water and nothing else and have *better* abrasion with rock-on-rock action. Your walnut shells are slowing things down.

You can definitely use walnut shells. When you tumble rocks, typically you use types that have a medium density.

https://polishingexpert.com/rock/...0polishing.

Density has nothing to do with any of this. It's all about Mohs hardness. One object of a lower hardness cannot scratch (i.e. remove material) off of one of greater hardness (with exceptions if the harder material is more brittle, e.g. obsidian).

I'd be very curious to see the results that you're getting with walnut shells. Do you have any pictures you can share?

What you're suggesting doesn't make any sense. Mohrs measures resistance to surface scratching. If you had a diamond, which would be a 10 on the scale, it wouldn't scratch easily and is not a stone you would polish by tumbling. Usually you would tumbling rocks around 4-7 on the Mohrs scale.

Here is a pre-polish and partial polished photo. Seriously, Walnut shells work great. The rocks will also partially polish as they smack against each other as they tumble, You can use a harder grit, but it costs a lot more.

It doesn't make sense because you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

You're correct, a diamond would not polish. It would, however, polish whatever it was thrown in with because it would be scratching the heck out of whatever else is in there.

You're also correct that typical rocks to tumble are in the 4-7 range (though more realistically, 6-7). The lower end of that range is very delicate because it is softer than the silicon carbide grit that you normally put in there (which has a hardness of 9). It gets beat up very quickly and easily.

Anyway, what makes walnut absolutely useless in a tumbler is that it's got a Mohs hardness of 3.5-4. For the very same reason that a diamond would not polish when you throw SiC or other softer rocks in the tumbler, any 6-7 rock that's easy to tumble is going to beat up the walnut shells; not the other way around.

If you have fluorite or calcite or something very soft, then sure, your walnut shells would be great for it, but those materials are very hard to tumble well. For the rocks that come in this kit that range from 6.5-7, they're ineffective.

Can you share a picture of dry stones you've tumbled? Showing them wet is essentially cheating and does not demonstrate a polish. Yes, they're rounded, but that's from bumping into other 6-7 Mohs stones. It's not from your walnut shells. Like I said in my original comment, you might as well just tumble them in together with just water and no walnut shells. It would have the same effect.

It doesn't make sense because you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

You're correct, a diamond would not polish. It would, however, polish whatever it was thrown in with because it would be scratching the heck out of whatever else is in there.

You're also correct that typical rocks to tumble are in the 4-7 range (though more realistically, 6-7). The lower end of that range is very delicate because it is softer than the silicon carbide grit that you normally put in there (which has a hardness of 9). It gets beat up very quickly and easily.

Anyway, what makes walnut absolutely useless in a tumbler is that it's got a Mohs hardness of 3.5-4. For the very same reason that a diamond would not polish when you throw SiC or other softer rocks in the tumbler, any 6-7 rock that's easy to tumble is going to beat up the walnut shells; not the other way around.

If you have fluorite or calcite or something very soft, then sure, your walnut shells would be great for it, but those materials are very hard to tumble well. For the rocks that come in this kit that range from 6.5-7, they're ineffective.

Can you share a picture of dry stones you've tumbled? Showing them wet is essentially cheating and does not demonstrate a polish. Yes, they're rounded, but that's from bumping into other 6-7 Mohs stones. It's not from your walnut shells. Like I said in my original comment, you might as well just tumble them in together with just water and no walnut shells. It would have the same effect.

I would suggest getting more experience if you aren't familiar with how to use various media with rock tumbling. Have been tumbling for years and no issues thus far using a walnurt slurry.

Also, those stones are dry. The reflection is from sunlight.

This is ground Walnut Shell, a soft grit abrasive with no polish added. This is a coarse size – 8/12 grit and will work in both vibrating and rotary tumblers. This will work great to remove tarnish from jewelry and other metal items. For more of a polish on jewelry, brass, coins and other items, add red rouge.

Crushed walnut shells make a very good filler for tumbling and also produces excellent final finish especially on metal.

Ah the good old ad hominem attack. Avoid the points I've made, but rather take jabs at me instead.

I have plenty of experience, which is why I'm trying to steer newbies away from your silly strategy that demonstrates a clear misunderstanding on what provides abrasion in tumbling. You may have no issues thus far using a walnut slurry, but you are too inexperienced and lack the fundamental knowledge to recognize that you're slowing down your own process. Rocks + water is faster than rocks + water + walnut.

If you'll notice, the two largest tumbling supply companies sell walnut shells. Do they mention rocks in there? No, of course they don't, because it doesn't work.

I'll add some info as I've been tumbling rocks for a long time. It's a lot of fun! This polisher might be okay for a kid, and might last through a batch or two. It really is a toy. For that price though you could maybe do a batch and see if you catch the bug for it. And the Harbor Freight option is a popular choice, and while I never owned that brand, I've read that the motors can be an issue. But it's still a good option.

If you do catch the bug, Thumbler's Tumbler and Lortone make good quality polishers that should last many years, but they are much more expensive. And you can buy various rocks and supplies (grit, polish, etc) at rockshed.com and kingsleynorth.com.

The traditional rotary tumbler requires you to tumble your rocks for a few weeks in "rough" grit. Then 1 week in medium, 1 week in fine, and then 1 week in polish. Depending on how long the first phase takes it can take 1-2 months. To answer the question about shortening the cycle... I do the first "rough" phase in a rotary tumbler. Then I use a vibratory polisher that does the last 3 phases in 10 days.

Obviously you don't tumble rocks. I know from experience how to make a slurry using walnut shells, which will save you a lot of $$$ then going with just grit and water. But really, I don't care. I you want to learn to polish rocks with just various stages of grit than enjoy. It works too, as I've done it many times.