Rock Polishing- Lake Michigan Stones

Finding stones is part of my beach combing hobby.  I am now polishing the stones I find.  I bought a nice rock tumbler on Amazon.  The cheap ones from places like Hobby Lobby have terrible ratings, so I avoided those.  My tumbler was in the $100 range.  It worked very well.  I like that it came with some rocks, materials to run my first cycle of rocks, and jewelry fixtures for my finished stones.

My stones came from the shores of Lake Michigan.  There are several types of stones that are native to Lake Michigan.  Here is a nice site, that lists the common ones. It looks like I got some Unakite, moonstone, quartz, agates, stink stone, some fossils, and some slate. The Unakite is neat, because it is said to be a balancing and healing stone.  I certainly can use anything with healing properties!  Ha-ha. Here is a page about Unakite.

Stones fresh off the beach (including some sea glass):

 I did not polish this large fossil.  I didn't not want to ruin the marks on it.

<3 My boyfriend, Dan, always finds heart shaped objects for me when we are on a trip.  He found this heart shaped slate stone for me on this particular trip to the beach. <3

Rock polishing is a hobby that takes a lot of patience!  It takes about a month to run a batch.  The tumbler runs 24 hours a day for this month long period.  There is a change of mixture about every 7 days though.  I ran it in the basement, because it is quite loud.  I also set it up in front of a small fan, to avoid overheating of the engine.  

Day 1:

This cycle is 7 days with course grit, to grind and smooth the rocks. 

 Water is also added with all of the mix packs.

Day 7:

The water looked like cement from all the rock that was ground off. This was washed off the rocks in preparation for the next cycle. 

The next cycle also run for 7 days.  The grit added is smaller than the first cycle.  Then, they went in with a pre-polish mix for 3 days. 

Day 17:

They were then run with a polish mix for another 7 days.

Day 24:

 Finished beauties!

I did put them back in the tumbler with some soap for an overnight wash after this, just to clean off any remaining debris. 

I have another beach trip planned for Labor day, so I am sure I will have another batch to run soon.  This trip will be to Indiana, but still on the shore of Lake Michigan.  I hope to find some of the varieties I don't have yet.  Of course I will be searching for sea glass and other treasures as well!  My blog on sea glass is here.